TOKYO — Hackers are using YouTube as a way to turn passive viewers into cryptocurrency miners, according to cybersecurity firm Trend Micro.
The issue was brought to light at the beginning of the week over social media with complaints that YouTube ads were raising red flags in anti-virus software, Mashable reported.
A service called Coinhive was apparently taking over a viewer's CPU and using it to mine digital coins.
According to Trend Micro, attackers used Google's DoubleClick ad software for traffic distribution.
Japan, France, Taiwan, Italy and Spain were affected by the malvertising campaign.
Google confirmed the cryptojacking threat, and eventually blocked the ads and removed the "malicious actors" from their platform.
The issue was brought to light at the beginning of the week over social media with complaints that YouTube ads were raising red flags in anti-virus software, Mashable reported.
A service called Coinhive was apparently taking over a viewer's CPU and using it to mine digital coins.
According to Trend Micro, attackers used Google's DoubleClick ad software for traffic distribution.
Japan, France, Taiwan, Italy and Spain were affected by the malvertising campaign.
Google confirmed the cryptojacking threat, and eventually blocked the ads and removed the "malicious actors" from their platform.
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