{"id":1205383,"date":"2022-01-10T16:06:40","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T21:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1205383"},"modified":"2022-01-10T16:06:54","modified_gmt":"2022-01-10T21:06:54","slug":"surprise-your-norton-360-security-software-now-comes-with-a-cryptominer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/surprise-your-norton-360-security-software-now-comes-with-a-cryptominer\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise!: Your Norton 360 Security Software Now Comes with a Cryptominer"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsurprise-your-norton-360-security-software-now-comes-with-a-cryptominer%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1205383&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">Norton 360, one of the most popular security suites on the market, has reportedly begun installing a cryptocurrency mining program on its customers\u2019 computers. Although the cryptominer is opt-in, the company is facing considerable backlash from customers who expect features like antivirus, not a tool to use their hardware (and electricity) in the hopes of generating digital currency.<\/p>\n<p>Security expert Brian Krebs&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/krebsonsecurity.com\/2022\/01\/norton-360-now-comes-with-a-cryptominer\/\">reports<\/a> that Norton 360, one of the most popular antivirus products around, has begun installing a cryptocurrency mining program on its customer\u2019s computers. The miner is part of an optional program developed by Norton which it says is a cloud-based service that activates the program and allows customers to profit from the scheme \u2014 while Norton takes a 15 percent cut of any cryptocurrency mined.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>The opt-in mining program called \u201cNorton Crypto\u201d will reportedly mine Ethereum cryptocurrency while the customer\u2019s computer is idle and not performing any intensive tasks.&nbsp;\u201cNorton creates a secure digital Ethereum wallet for each user,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/community.norton.com\/en\/forums\/faq-norton-crypto\">FAQ for the program reads<\/a>. \u201cThe key to the wallet is encrypted and stored securely in the cloud. Only you have access to the wallet.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<div id=\"attachment_7666912\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Ethereum-Founder-and-Inventor-Vitalik-Buterin.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7666912\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Ethereum-Founder-and-Inventor-Vitalik-Buterin.jpg\" alt=\"Ethereum Founder and Inventor Vitalik Buterin\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ethereum Founder and Inventor Vitalik Buterin (flickr\/TechCrunch)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>NortonLifeLock said that the Norton Crypto feature is an opt-in feature and users must grant explicit permission for the program to run.&nbsp;\u201cIf users have turned on Norton Crypto but no longer wish to use the feature, it can be disabled by temporarily shutting off \u2018tamper protection\u2019 (which allows users to modify the Norton installation) and deleting NCrypt.exe from your computer,\u201d NortonLifeLock said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>However, multiple users have reported that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitaltrends.com\/computing\/no-easy-way-to-uninstall-norton-crypto\/\">uninstallation process for the software is not easy to follow.<\/a>&nbsp;Many Norton users are angered by the move, with <a href=\"https:\/\/community.norton.com\/en\/comment\/8518793#comment-8518793\">one post on the company\u2019s forum reading<\/a>:&nbsp;\u201cNorton should be DETECTING and killing off crypto mining hijacking, not installing their own. The product people need firing. What\u2019s the next \u2018bright idea\u2019? Norton Botnet? \u2018 And I was just about to re-install Norton 360 too, but this has literally has caused me to no longer trust Norton and their direction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Security researcher&nbsp;Chris Vickery tweeted his disapproval for the program, calling it \u201cbrand suicide:\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Norton is pretty much amplifying energy consumption worldwide, costing their customers more in electricity use than the customer makes on the mining, yet allowing Norton to make a ton of profit.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s disgusting, gross, and brand-suicide.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Chris Vickery (@VickerySec) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VickerySec\/status\/1478937736325197824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 6, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Read more at <a href=\"https:\/\/krebsonsecurity.com\/2022\/01\/norton-360-now-comes-with-a-cryptominer\/\">Krebs on Security here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><i>Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter&nbsp;<\/i><i><a class=\"x5l\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/lucasnolan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">@LucasNolan<\/a>&nbsp;<\/i><i>or email him at&nbsp;<\/i><i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/\">lnolan@breitbart.com<\/a><\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Norton 360, one of the most popular security suites on the market, has reportedly begun installing a cryptocurrency mining program on its customers\u2019 computers. Although the cryptominer is opt-in, the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1205383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1205383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1205383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1205383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1205383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}