Reports from Ars Technica says on Friday users on social networking platforms started to complain that YouTube ads were triggering their Anti-virus.
Hackers Are Using YouTube Ads To Mine Cryptocurrency
The trend of mining digital coins had reached sky high. We have seen several websites caught mining digital coins using visitors CPU power. The technique to use processor power to mine digital coin is now used by malware creators as well as website owners.
So, Cryptojacking is a relatively new malware issue that has gradually become a widespread problem. Hackers are trying different methods to harness a victims CPU to mine cryptocurrencies.
You will be shocked to know that the latest network that was targeted by hackers is Google’s advertising service on YouTube. According to the reports from Ars Technica, on Friday users on social networking platforms started to complain that YouTube ads were triggering their Anti-virus software.
Hey @avast_antivirus seems that you are blocking crypto miners (#coinhive) in @YouTube #ads
Thank you 🙂https://t.co/p2JjwnQyxz— Diego Betto (@diegobetto) January 25, 2019
The same form me. Maybe youtube is using coinhive . com ? pic.twitter.com/GUSItBp1tM
— Neretva (@neretva2010) January 24, 2019
Well, the antivirus software is recognizing a script from a service called Coinhive. Well, a script from Coinhive actually used by bad actors to mine Monero coins using victims CPU power. The script can be used ethically as long as the site notifies its visitors about the happenings.
So, in YouTube’s case, the ads running the script found consuming up to 80% of the CPU power and the worst thing is neither YouTube nor the victims were told what was happening.
According to the reports from Trend Micro, these ads started spreading to victims based in Japan, France, Taiwan, Italy and Spain as soon as it started this week.
Google reacted to this case and said that the advertisements were blocked in two hours. One of the Google’s spokesperson said: “Mining cryptocurrency through ads is a relatively new form of abuse that violates our policies and one that we’ve been monitoring actively.”
So, what do you think about this? Share your views in the comment box below.
