uTorrent accused of bundling cryptocurrency malware with popular BitTorrent client

For years, if youve used BitTorrent, youve probably used Torrent to manage and control torrent files. The software is the most popular Torrent client online with an estimated 100 million users, and its valued for its small footprint and rich feature set. Torrent has been including adware for several years (despite warning people in its install against installations that attempt to charge for the program), but it may have crossed a line this time numerous users are reporting that installing the program also silently installs an application called Epic Scale.

Epic Scale is shady looking, to say the least. The company website claims a straight link between installing Epic Scale and benefiting charities literally.

The impression the website gives is that by installing this program, you literally donate compute time to charity. Its like Folding@Home, or SETI, or another equivalent project right?

Well, no. Not exactly. A little farther down the page, the website notes:

How is money earned?

Solving math problems for weather prediction, physics simulations, cryptography (including cryptocurrency mining) and more has real world value. We solve these problems on behalf of our trusted partners, and donate proceeds to your favorite charities.

Heres a hint: The only one of those activities that actually earns any money is cryptocurrency mining, and thats what Epic Scale does.

The program sets itself to Continuously by default

On the one hand, this is actually kind of baffling. Cryptocurrency mining on CPUs went out years ago. Its incredibly unlikely that Epic Scale could generate much in the way of income even with massive amounts of miners, CPU scaling simply isnt good enough. On the other hand, the company has ambitions its CPU-scanning software notes that my system (a Core i7-3960X) has zero AMD and zero Nvidia cards. Thats not true but obviously Epic Scale wants to, erm, scale out.

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uTorrent accused of bundling cryptocurrency malware with popular BitTorrent client