Websites of several governments affected by a hidden code that undermined cryptocurrencies

Thousands of government websites in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States have been used to illegally mine Monero cryptocurrencies, using the resources of their visitors without their consent.

The attackers included a CoinHive script in the Browsealoud plugin of the Texthelp company, used, among other sites, in all those websites of the government of these countries as an accessibility plugin for users with visual difficulties.

Texthelp disabled the plugin as soon as it was aware that it had been compromised, ensuring that no data from its clients was accessed or lost.