Thousands of government websites have been hijacked by hackers to mine cryptocurrency, in a process known as "cryptojacking", it has emerged.
The sites, including the Information Commissioner's Office, the Scottish NHS helpline and the Student Loans company - along with hundreds of other central and local government sites - appear to have been running a power-pinching program that uses visitors' computers to mine cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum.
The websites were infected with malware called Coinhive, which works by hiding in a website’s code, while stealing the processing power of its visitors' devices to mine cryptocurrency.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/02/11/government-websites-secretly-mining-cryptocurrency/
