TOKYO — Hackers are using YouTube as a way to turn passive viewers into cryptocurrency miners, according to cybersecurity firm Trend Micro.<br /><br />The issue was brought to light at the beginning of the week over social media with complaints that YouTube ads were raising red flags in anti-virus software, Mashable reported. <br />A service called Coinhive was apparently taking over a viewer's CPU and using it to mine digital coins. <br />According to Trend Micro, attackers used Google's DoubleClick ad software for traffic distribution.<br /><br />Japan, France, Taiwan, Italy and Spain were affected by the malvertising campaign. <br />Google confirmed the cryptojacking threat, and eventually blocked the ads and removed the "malicious actors" from their platform.
