Cult coffee giant, Starbucks, has been caught mining for bitcoin, following revelations that consumers who access Starbucks’ Wi-Fi may inadvertently have code used to mine cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, installed onto their devices.
Noah Dinkin took to Twitter to voice his concerns:
Hi @Starbucks @StarbucksAr did you know that your in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires forces a 10 second delay when you first connect to the wifi so it can mine bitcoin using a customer’s laptop? Feels a little off-brand.. cc @GMFlickinger pic.twitter.com/VkVVdSfUtT
— Noah Dinkin (@imnoah) December 2, 2017
Starbucks has since responded to the complaint, affirming that the issue has been resolved.
Starbucks claims the problem was with an internet service providers, not the coffee franchise itself:
“Last week, we were alerted to the issue and we reached out to our internet service provider — the wi-fi is not run by Starbucks, it’s not something we own or control,” the spokesman told Motherboard.
“We want to ensure that our customers are able to search the internet over wi-fi securely, so we will always work closely with our service provider when something like this comes up.”
“We don’t have any concern that this is widespread across any of our stores.”
Bitcoining mining is becoming more prevalent, with hackers penetrating computers to search for accessible coins not being traded on the market.
