Music streaming service Spotify has been made to apologise to users after one of their advertisements was displayed containing a virus to some of its users.

The advertisement appeared within Spotify’s Windows desktop software and did not need to be clicked on to infect a user’s machine.

A bogus ‘Windows Recovery’ anti-virus program would be installed.

“Users with anti-virus software will have been protected” was written in a statement on Spotify’s website.

The vulnerability only affected users with free subscriptions.

Spotify, the Swedish-based music streaming service has around seven million users, of which six million use the free service which was affected.