Satya Swaroop
Member • Mar 6, 2015
Cryptocurrency Miner Software Comes Bundled With The Latest uTorrent Installer
If you weren’t paying close attention to the installation process of the latest uTorrent chances are you allowed an additional program to be installed on your computer that uses a portion of your CPU cycles to mine cryptocurrency Litecoin. This issue was first reported on the #-Link-Snipped-# by one of its members who claimed that cryptocurrency mining software called as Epic Scale was installed on his computer during the installation of uTorrent version 3.4.2 build 28913 (32-bit). According to #-Link-Snipped-# website the software sits in your computer and uses the idle processing power of your CPU to mine cryptocurrency for philanthropic purposes and solve problems related to weather prediction and physics simulations. The folks from #-Link-Snipped-# are sceptical of these claims because Epic Scale does not mention clearly on its website who are the ones getting benefitted from this initiative. We are particularly alarmed by the findings of #-Link-Snipped-#, who report that the installer for Epic Scale has been flagged as a risk by antivirus vendors such as Kaspersky, McAfee and ESET.
As soon as the user on uTorrent forum claimed that the software was installed without his knowledge, BitTorrent, the makers of uTorrent informed to uTorrent's latest update installs a cryptocurrency miner - The Verge in an official statement that the Epic Scale software was being bundled with the latest version of the popular Bit Torrent client as a partner offer but its installation was optional and the user has complete control over the installation process. This claim was confirmed by the folks at Trusted Reviews who found that the Epic Scale install was opt-in as seen from the screenshot below. If you have been using uTorrent software for some time you must have seen that the company offers installation of various partner software like browsers, toolbars and legal torrents such as movies and music albums from indie artists.
Epic Scale has taken note of this issue and released #-Link-Snipped-# explaining their side and offered #-Link-Snipped-# for uninstalling the software. So the lesson learnt from this development is clear, always pay close attention to what you are agreeing while installing any software.
As soon as the user on uTorrent forum claimed that the software was installed without his knowledge, BitTorrent, the makers of uTorrent informed to uTorrent's latest update installs a cryptocurrency miner - The Verge in an official statement that the Epic Scale software was being bundled with the latest version of the popular Bit Torrent client as a partner offer but its installation was optional and the user has complete control over the installation process. This claim was confirmed by the folks at Trusted Reviews who found that the Epic Scale install was opt-in as seen from the screenshot below. If you have been using uTorrent software for some time you must have seen that the company offers installation of various partner software like browsers, toolbars and legal torrents such as movies and music albums from indie artists.
Epic Scale has taken note of this issue and released #-Link-Snipped-# explaining their side and offered #-Link-Snipped-# for uninstalling the software. So the lesson learnt from this development is clear, always pay close attention to what you are agreeing while installing any software.