Japanese police are investigating suspects for illegally inserting cryptomining code onto computers in what could be the first significant test case targeting website owners using the practice worldwide.

According to Japanese newspaper Machini, police believe a number of people used other people’s personal computers without permission, setting up websites in fall 2017 to install a program on viewers’ computers to use the machines for mining the Monero cryptocurrency.

“Investigators suspect that the case is a violation of the law banning use of computer viruses,” the report noted. “If police press charges, it will be the first case in Japan where illegal use of computers in cryptocurrency mining would become a criminal case.”

The problem lies in whether running a JavaScript process in the background while visiting a website — script that also has legitimate purposes — should be considered the same as the installation of an actual program, such as software bundled with malware or cryptomining software.

Japanese police argue that the .js code served on a website is in fact the installation of a mining program without consent and that it also forces machines to function in ways not intended by their legitimate owners. The police go even further in noting that they “do not intend to press charges over websites that clearly say they are placing mining software on visitors’ computers.”

In the first test case, police charged a website designer under the law, as the Yokohama Summary Court ordered the man to pay a 100,000 yen ($907) fine “for illegally storing a computer virus.” But the defendant is appealing the case on the grounds that the cryptomining script was not a virus because it uses a method similar to distributing advertisements online.

It will be interesting to see what the outcome of the appeal is, since it will set a precedent not only in Japan but likely worldwide as other countries look to Japan, already a leader in cryptocurrency regulation, to see how it rules on the case.

The report comes a day after it was revealed that a new cryptomining campaign using actual malware rather than JapaScript inserts on websites was targeting Amazon Fire devices and a new report found that Monero mining malware was surging.

Photo: Ypy31/Wikimedia Commons