Another case of “cryptojacking” was recently found on two official Showtime Network websites:

showtime.com

showtimeanytime.com

This was first reported by Twitter user @SkensNet on September 23 at 9:10 PM GMT. No statement from Showtime Networks or CBS Corporation has been given yet as to why the Coinhive cryptocurrency miner has appeared on their websites.

This could be simply found by viewing the source code of https://www.showtime.com/ and https://www.showtimeanytime.com/ in any browser:

Coinhive is JavaScript library that can be embedded into any website. Once a user visits the website, they unwittingly start mining the cryptocurrency Monero. This can put a tremendous load on the CPU of anyone who visits a website with the Coinhive miner on it.

Catalin Cimpanu of BleepingComputer.com recently published an article describing the nefarious uses of Coinhive and how it’s rapidly becoming a favorite tool among malware developers:

In the few days that have passed after it launched, Coinhive has spread to almost all corners of the malware community. First, we saw it embedded inside a popular Chrome extension named SafeBrowse, where the Coinhive code was added to run in Chrome’s background and mine Monero at all times the browser was running. Then, we saw Coinhive embedded in typosquatted domains. Someone registered the twitter.com.com domain name and was loading the Coinhive JS library on the page. Users who mistyped the Twitter URL and ended up on the page would mine Monero for the site’s owner. This would happen for only a few seconds until the user realized he was on the bad page, but that would be enough for the site’s owner to generate a profit. In time and with more of these domains in hand, the owner of all those mistyped site URLs would make a nice profit.

So how did this even end up on the official Showtime Networks websites?

The answer is not clear yet, however Coinhive did recently appear on The Pirate Bay website and was quickly found by TorrentFreak. Other users of the site also noticed and took their outcry to thepiratebay subreddit . The Coinhive miner was later removed by The Pirate Bay operators, who released the following statement:

As you may have noticed we are testing a Monero javascript miner. This is only a test. We really want to get rid of all the ads. But we also need enough money to keep the site running.

Since the answer is not clear yet when the Coinhive miner was implemented on the Showtime Anytime website, I reviewed a cached copy saved by Google and the latest copy saved by Archive.org.

The copy saved by Google on September 21, 2017 21:31:06 GMT did not appear to have the Coinhive javascript code:

Neither did the Archive.org copy from September 18, 2017 10:06:54 GMT:

MalwareBytes users have noted that Coinhive is now detected and blocked. I verified this by visiting the Showtime Anytime website with active protection enabled.

MalwareBytes blocked the outbound connection before the cryptocurrency mining could begin.

9/25 Update: Both official Showtime Network websites have the Coinhive miner: showtime.com and showtimeanytime.com.

9/26 Update: The Coinhive script was removed from Showtime Network websites around 4:45 PM GMT on 9/25. No statement yet from Showtime/CBS regarding this incident.

9/29 Update: Showtime/CBS continues to decline providing any statement regarding this incident.

This is a developing story, check back for updates.