Home Malware Programs Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) 'Bitcoins to live' Extension

'Bitcoins to live' Extension

Posted: August 22, 2017

Threat Metric

Threat Level: 8/10
Infected PCs: 36
First Seen: August 21, 2017
OS(es) Affected: Windows

The 'Bitcoins to live' extension is a strange browser add-on, which is only compatible with Google Chrome. The only thing it offers to its users is the ability to calculate how much Bitcoins they would need to last a month. To do this, the extension asks them to enter how much dollars they spent on food, rent, and bills each month. After this requirement is complete, the 'Bitcoins to live' extension will use the current Bitcoin/USD exchange rate to calculate the amount of Bitcoins the users would need to last an entire month considering their current spending habits.

The peculiar thing is that the current version of the 'Bitcoins to live' extension does not do anything else – it does not inject ads nor does it work as a browser hijacker. However, the add-on does connect to a remote server to gather the data it needs to calculate the Bitcoin rate. Surprisingly, it does not use a popular online service for this purpose and, instead, it appears to connect to a server owned by its creator. While this is not harmful necessarily, it makes it possible for the creator to push extension updates manually, which might give the 'Bitcoins to live' extension the ability to hijack the Chrome's settings or even to insert ads in the user's Web browsing sessions.

Although having the 'Bitcoins to live' extension installed is not a security flaw necessarily, the advice is to dispose of this add-on since it does not offer anything unique.

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