Users of the popular and free bit torrent client uTorrent were outraged last Thursday to discover their computers being used to mine bit-coin variants. They were quick to vent their anger on the social networking site reddit and the uTorrent support forums over the silent and unauthorized miner being installed onto their system.
Users claimed the update of uTorrent to version 3.4.2 build 38913 (32-bit) silently installed a software called 'Epic Scale', a Windows program that used the computer's processor to mine the bit-coin variant Lite coin. The program greatly increased the CPU load and used the computers spare processing power and resources during idle periods for its mining activity.
A Sr. Manager of Customer Support and Outreach from uTorrent denied this and was quoted saying that they designed software that ensured that downloads did not occur without the explicit approval of the user. It was further clarified that the Epic Scale software was a cryptocurrency miner that used a portion of the CPU cycles to contribute to the mining effort. A portion of whose proceeds went to philanthropic initiatives.
However uTorrent did confirm that they were in partnership with Epic Scale in order to continue to generate revenue for the company. 'Epic Scale' installation was further justified by uTorrent which described its partnership its with 'Epic Scale' were to also help greater initiatives of the company which included contributing CPU cycles for other initiatives such as such as Genome mapping and other academic studies that require a great deal of processing power.
Users however claimed that there was no indication or screen depicting the installation of the "Epic Scale" program during the update of uTorrent and also claimed that they were not able to opt out of the installation.
Uninstallation of the rogue software also remained problematic, with users unable to completely remove all the folders and files.
Use of other popular bit torrent clients such as qBittorrent, Deluge, and Transmission were advised by the torrent user community.