Tubrosa Trojan: "Botnet Infected Computers Makes YouTube Videos"

Cybercriminals use infected computers to watch videos on YouTube, where they ultimately paid for by Google hope to be. Furthermore it is on computers even Adobe Flash Player installed to allow this form of advertising fraud. YouTube pays video creators through a special affiliate program, whereby ads are displayed in the videos. The more people view the videos, the greater the reward. A Swedish gamer with the alias "Pewdiepie" It is estimated that each year 13 million earn his YouTube videos.

For years, botnets are used for advertising fraud, where cybercriminals have infected computers clicking on ads or only view out. According to anti-virus company Symantec have these cybercriminals now shifted their field to YouTube. A few weeks ago, researchers discovered the company's new click fraud malware that infected computers used to artificially inflate the number of times a YouTube video was viewed. Through the affiliate program, the cybercriminals can then redeem their activities.

The attack starts with an e-mail attachment or link that points to the malware. Once activated the malware download a file with thousands of YouTube videos that need to view the computer. Then the malware opens videos in the background to keep the activities hidden from the user. The malware will even update or install Adobe Flash Player to view the videos. The Tubrosa Trojan responsible for these activities would mainly in South Korea, India and Mexico are active. Google late in a statement that it knows of the malware and advertisers protects against the ad fraud.