Virus writers target web videos

The growing popularity of online video has caught the attention of malicious hackers and hi-tech criminals, BBC News reports.

Security firms are reporting more and more instances of booby-trapped Windows codecs – file compressors – required to play some video formats.

Some of the codecs let users play types of net-based video, but also have spyware and adware wrapped inside. Others, say experts, are outright fakes that just want to infect victims with data-stealing programs.

One recently discovered codec became a program that found fictitious security problems on a PC and demanded payment to repair them.