Daughter Company Norton (Avira Antivirus) also contains cryptominer

Last week we reported that Norton is now actively inserting a crypto miner in the Norton 360 security software suite. And it seems however that Norton (NortonLifeLock) really is keen on using your hardware and electricity as in their daughter company Avira Antivirus a similar scheme has been injected.

Avira has half a billion users worldwide at the time of writing. According to Brian Krebs, the service is primarily due to the fact that the antivirus is available for free. Other antivirus products began detecting the presence of a crypto miner embedded within the Avira installation in September, even though Avira Crypto was integrated to the software only a few months earlier in October. Brian Krebs has reached out to NortonLifeLock for comment, but has not yet received a response:

Founded in 2006, Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG is a German multinational software company best known for their Avira Free Security (a.k.a. Avira Free Antivirus). In January 2021, Avira was acquired by Tempe, Ariz.-based NortonLifeLock Inc., the same company that now owns Norton 360.

In 2017, the identity theft protection company LifeLock was acquired by Symantec Corp., which was renamed to NortonLifeLock in 2019. LifeLock is now included in the Norton 360 service; Avira offers users a similar service called Breach Monitor.

Like Norton 360, Avira comes with a cryptominer already installed, but customers have to opt in to using the service that powers it. Avira’s FAQ on its cryptomining service is somewhat sparse. For example, it doesn’t specify how much NortonLifeLock gets out of the deal (NortonLifeLock keeps 15 percent of any cryptocurrency mined by Norton Crypto). Google's Virustotal.com, now has detected the miner inside the anti-virus software, and tags it as a Trojan.Coinminer

Currently, the miner seems to be in opt-in status (voluntary), however, be aware that your electricity bill and hardware write-off will very likely cost you more than the benefit. Here's a tip: Remove the software and turn on Windows Defender.