Spotify users targeted by virus

Spotify has apologised to its users after the music streaming service ran an advert that contained a virus.

Users of Spotify's Free or Open service in the UK, Sweden, France and Spain were targeted by a virus that was contained in an advert which ran from Thursday 24 to Friday 25 March. The virus only affected people running Spotify on a Windows operating system.

Patrick Runald, of internet security company Websense, said that users didn't need to click on the advert to get infected with a rootkit.

"Usually malicious ads are displayed as part of a website and viewed with the browser. In this case the malicious ad is displayed inside the Spotify application itself.

This means that for a device to become infected "it's enough that the ad is just displayed to you, you don't even have to click on the ad itself", he said.

If a Spotify user did click on the advert, it took them to a website that prompted them to download a fake anti-virus program called Windows Recovery. Once installed, Windows Recovery can install malicious software on the computer.

Spotify said that people with updated anti-virus software will have been protected.

Concerned users can go to the Anti-Malvertising website, which explains how you can tell if your computer has been infected and ways to solve the issue.

Spotify apologised to any users affected and said that it was working hard to ensure such an incident didn't happen again.