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The issue is believed to have first come to light last week when users of the Google owned video website reported that watching adverts on YouTube was triggering their anti-virus software. The adverts were found to contain a mining code called CoinHive that were acting as malware attack by secretly using up to 80 per cent of visitors’ computers central processing units to mine cryptocurrencies for anonymous hackers. As well as trading money for cryptocurrencies, new coins of the online money can be digitally mined.

GETTY Hackers have been using adverts on youtube to mine cryptocurrencies

However, mining the currencies consumes a lot of computer power, and hackers have began stealing power from other computers to mine the money on their behalf. Google have said that their advertising service is closely monitored for any malware used by those trying to mine digital currencies. A spokesman for Google said: “We enforce our policies through a multi-layered detection system across our platforms which we update as new threats emerge.

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“In this case, the ads were blocked in less than two hours and the malicious actors were quickly removed from our platforms.” Trend Micro, an anti-virus provider, have analysed the cyberattacks and managed to identify the countries most at risk from being hit. In a blog on their website, they said their system “shows affected countries include Japan, France, Taiwan, Italy, and Spain”.

They added: “We have already disclosed our findings to Google. "We detected an almost 285 per cent increase in the number of Coinhive miners on January 24. “We started seeing an increase in traffic to five malicious domains on January 18.

GETTY Google have said all malware adverts were removed within hours

GETTY Bitcoin mining takes a lot of computer power with some miners dedicating whole rooms to the process