Mining viruses infiltrate YouTube

As reported by technology journalists and bloggers, YouTube has not evaded the dangers of malvertising and hackers have somehow managed to inject mining viruses in the advertisement on YouTube.

The advertisement virus uses the vulnerabilities of DoubleClick, the advertising mechanism on YouTube, and it is based on the popular CoinHive mining script. The main feature of the latter is in-browser mining of cryptocurrency called Monero, and this algorithm has already been described in other media publications. Malicious actors were swiftly dealt with, assures the spokesman for Google, and reiterates how his company always upgrades the means of prevention of threats similar to this one.

Apparently, this CoinHive malicious code has proven to be quite universally applicable, as it has been used in Starbucks, in Google Chrome, and even in mobile applications. As for Monero, it is favored by hackers when it comes to viruses like the one described above due to the altcoin’s current mining simplicity and features which even made the press secretary of DASH call the rival’s blockchain non-transparent (see our interview for further details).