Ryan Ramminger, creator of an app called “Prized”, has been fined $50,000 after the Federal Trade Commission revealed charges he had been using hidden malware within his app to “take control of the computing resources of consumers’ mobile devices to mine for virtual currencies, such as Dogecoin, Litecoin and Quarkcoin.”
Customers were unaware of what was happening on their phones, however the terms of use of the app did specify that any code within it would be free of malware, spyware, time-bombs and viruses.The app being an alleged Trojan horse for intrusive malware is highly unexpected and could be highly damaging to mobiles and other devices.
The nature of mining for cryptocurrencies like those targeted basically involves “mining” for them through the solution of complex problems by computers – when you mine across multiple devices, this is known as “pooling”, making the creation of currency quickly as there is more computing power behind the process.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/06/busted-app-maker-whod-hijack-your-phone-to-secretly-mine-dogecoin/
