Now even YouTube serves ads with CPU-draining cryptocurrency miners

Enlarge (credit: Diego Betto)

YouTube was recently caught displaying ads that covertly leach off visitors' CPUs and electricity to generate digital currency on behalf of anonymous attackers, it was widely reported.

Word of the abusive ads started no later than Tuesday, as people took to social media sites to complain their antivirus programs were detecting cryptocurrency mining code when they visited YouTube. The warnings came even when people changed the browser they were using, and the warnings seemed to be limited to times when users were on YouTube.

Great now my browser everytime I watch youtube... my anti virus always blocking coinhive because malware . Idk much about it but this is getting annoying and I need a solution please T n T

- Arung (@ArungLaksmana) January 23, 2018

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, 2018

Por lo visto @YouTube es muy gracioso y no le bastaba con bajarnos la audiencia, ahora van y nos meten el JavaScript de Coinhive para utilizar nuestros dispositivos para minar Monero! De verdad, @Google! Que leeches estiis haciendo con YouTube?? pic.twitter.com/NzMUMlArJs

- a-aErvoaa- (@Mystic_Ervo) January 24, 2018

On Friday, researchers with antivirus provider Trend Micro said the ads helped drive a more than three-fold spike in Web miner detections. They said the attackers behind the ads were abusing Google's DoubleClick ad platform to display them to YouTube visitors in select countries, including Japan, France, Taiwan, Italy, and Spain.

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