Kodi users hit by cryptocurrency mining malware.

Have you been affected by Crypto malware mining? Let us know what you did to get rid of it and how you protect yourself against in. For us and others.

Kodi users are being warned of a new crypto-jacking scam…

The media platform Kodi is one that’s being used by many people to circumvent copyright and get access over streaming to copyrighted work. What’s more, it’s coming with a price, as Kodi users find themselves targeted by malware.

That’s the case with a new warning that’s come about, courtesy of an investigation by ZDNet. It’s reporting that a trio of Kodi add-on resources have been infected by malware that then harnesses people’s computing power, and starts mining cryptocurrency – all without them knowing it.

Given that the Kodi system is reliant on people accessing add-ons for it to work in the first place, this inevitably makes it a target. And the three repositories cited in the ZDNet report – Bubbles, Gaia and XcBMC – have all been found to contain the malware. The three of them subsequently have been offline, due to ongoing copyright investigations.

This particular malicious code has been affecting Windows and Linux-based users of Kodi only, and the malware has – as malware does – been spreading as a consequence beyond just Kodi users.

Malware that hijacks someone’s computer to mine crypto has been a growing area of concern for security software specialists. Whilst the vast majority of it doesn’t wreak havoc on the user’s files, it certainly hits the performance of the machine concerned. It works in the background of the system, and oftentimes, the user has no idea it’s working at all, save for the occasional slowdown of the computer itself.

It’s always worth keeping security software up to date…