YouTube Ads Secretly Use Viewers’ CPUs To Mine Cryptocurrency

The latest to become embroiled in the cryptocurrency mining controversy that hijacks user CPUs is YouTube. According to recent reports, it would seem that some ads are triggering antivirus programs since they are essentially trying to take over computers to mine coins. Naturally, Google is displeased and said that the issue has been dealt with.

The first to notice the cryptojacking trend were researchers from Trend Micro and in a blog post, the firm explained what the problem was all about. After noticing that there was an uptick in Coinhive activity, the researchers quickly discovered that it was due to a hijacking of YouTube ads.

“An analysis of the malvertisement-riddled pages revealed two different web miner scripts embedded and a script that displays the advertisement from DoubleClick. The affected webpage will show the legitimate advertisement while the two web miners covertly perform their task,” the post reads.

Before this post, however, users were already complaining on social media that their antivirus programs have been going nuts while watching YouTube. Apparently, it didn’t even matter which browser the users were watching from, Ars Technica reports.

What’s more, it seems the perpetrators actually had the gall to advertise fake antivirus programs that actually installed malicious software. Not only would customers be scammed out of their money, their units would be infected as well. Google has since responded to the issue, telling Ars Technica via email that the matter has been dealt with in a matter of hours.

“Mining cryptocurrency through ads is a relatively new form of abuse that violates our policies and one that we’ve been monitoring actively. We enforce our policies through a multi-layered detection system across our platforms which we update as new threats emerge. In this case, the ads were blocked in less than two hours and the malicious actors were quickly removed from our platforms,” the email reads.