Snippet: Cryptomining in Antivirus Software ☇

Brian Krebs:

Many readers were surprised to learn recently that the popular Norton 360 antivirus suite now ships with a program which lets customers make money mining virtual currency. But Norton 360 isn’t alone in this dubious endeavor: Avira antivirus — which has built a base of 500 million users worldwide largely by making the product free — was recently bought by the same company that owns Norton 360 and is introducing its customers to a service called Avira Crypto.

While anti-malware software is often necessary, many programs already try to do too much and waste system resources making one wonder if the remedy is worse than the symptoms. Throwing in cryptomining seems to be pushing that even further.