Over the weekend, hackers injected thousands of websites—including UK and US government sites—with code that hijacked visitors’ computers to mine cryptocurrency.

The attack, noticed on Sunday by security researcher Scott Helme, was pulled off by compromising a single plugin that was used by all of the affected sites: Browsealoud, a reputable suite of accessibility and translation tools. According to Helme, the plugin was edited by attackers to embed a script that uses a site visitor’s computer to do the complex math that generates new digital coins (in this case, Monero). This process, known as “mining,” can slow down the victim’s computer.

The attack loaded malicious Javascript onto visitors’ computers. The hackers behind the attack chose to mine cryptocurrency, but they had the power to do almost whatever they wanted.

"It could have been a catastrophe, it really could have—that's not just scaremongering," Helme told Motherboard in a phone call. "We were exceptionally lucky this was so mild and so quickly found."

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