YouTube owner Google has been forced to act quickly to fix a flaw on it’s YouTube video sharing website that allowed hackers to bombard users with pop-up messages, redirecting them to adult websites.
The code was placed in the comments section of targeted videos and would run automatically when people watched the clip.
Google says the problem was fixed within only two hours of being reported, according to the BBC.
“We took swift action to fix a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on youtube.com,” a spokesperson said.
“Comments were temporarily hidden by default within an hour, and we released a complete fix for the issue in about two hours.
Hackers had used JavaScript and HTML code to trigger the malicious pop-ups.
“The thing with a cross-site scripting attack is that it will appear that it is a message being posted by that website, which gives it a certain legitimacy, Graham Cluley of security firm Sophos told BBC News.
“It could be used to show a message that tells you to update your password; it could link to a malicious website; or it could attempt to phish you.”
For now YouTube is back to it’s old self and if you’re visiting the site in the next week I thoroughly recommend you click on the football icon during playing videos to add an authentic Vuvuzela soundtrack.
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It wasn’t a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw, it was a html code injection flaw.
And when I found out of this, then it took at least 3~4 hours before Google made the “Hide comments”-workaround.