A hidden miner worked while users watched ads on YouTube

Mining cryptocurrency using the resources of foreign computers is becoming increasingly popular. All that is needed is to find a way to place a JS-code on a popular resource and those who open the web page...

The effectiveness of such mining depends on the number of users. Typically, visitors to sites quickly view the content: they spend a small amount of time on news pages and hang out a little longer on forums. The more visits, the more cryptocurrency. But what if the script can produce cryptocurrency while users watch a video?

Hackers managed to integrate the popular script Coinhive, which is popular for hidden mining, in commercials on YouTube by placing ads using the Google DoubleClick platform. In this way, they received Monero for free while the users of the video hosting platform waited with annoyance until it was possible to skip the advertisement.

After the problem became known, Google wrote an official response. Multilevel security of the company's services is improved as new threats emerge. Mining through advertising is a new kind of hidden production of cryptocurrency, so it took some time for specialists to resolve. The corporation claims that in less than two hours, all advertisements with the miner were disabled and all accounts of the attackers were deleted. However, some users in social networks, as well as experts from Trend Micro, say that the hidden mining on YouTube worked for about a week. Given the number of users of the video hosting site, it can be assumed that someone has earned quite a bit.

Recently it became known that the attackers distributed the miner using Facebook Messenger. Periodically, scripts for mining are found on various popular sites. The owners of some of the resources themselves are not averse to receiving cryptocurrency for free at the expense of their visitors. One of the pioneers of hidden mining was the torrent tracker “ThePirateBay”.