Corrupted Ads Hijack Viewers of Popular YouTube Music Video

Ads cooked up by fraudsters and placed on the video-sharing website redirected tens of thousands of people to malicious sites, Network World reports.

“This was a worrying development: Not only were malicious ads showing up on YouTube, they were on videos with more than 11 million views—in particular, a music video uploaded by a high-profile record label,” Trend Micro fraud researcher Joseph Chen wrote on the anti-malware company’s blog.

He did not identify the affected videos or the record label.

Users viewing the ads are bounced through two servers in the Netherlands before landing on a malicious server located in the United States, according to the report. 

There, a hacking toolkit attempts to install “ransomware,” a program that typically freezes a victim’s files until a fine is paid.

This particular type of ransomware is hosted on part of a Polish government site that was hacked.

Read the rest at ThreatWatch, Nextgov’s regularly updated index of cyber breaches.

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(Image via Gil C/Shutterstock.com)