YouTube Hack: Popular Music Videos Defaced

Last updated June 10, 2021
Written by:
Nitish Singh

YouTube has just succumbed to a disastrous hack. Multiple high profile music videos from the video streaming platform have been defaced, while the most-viewed YouTube video of all time, Despacito - by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, has also been deleted. All the video images have been altered and are now replaced with a still from the Netflix show - Casa de Papel, which shows a masked-gang holding firearms.

YouTube Hack

Image Courtesy of The Review Geek

Famous artists whose accounts have been affected by the hack includes the likes of Chris Brown, Shakira, DJ Snake, Selena Gomez, Drake, Katy Perry, and Taylor Swift. Many of their videos are still available on the platform, but they come with a defaced title and a thumbnail image.

All of these altered/affected music videos were uploaded to their respective artists Vevo YouTube account. Furthermore, the video description was also altered, and it now boasts the hackers’ names - Prosox & Kuroi’sh, and many others.

As of now, there is little information as to how all the famous Vevo accounts got hacked or whether or not these accounts have been exploited any further. All we know is from one of the hackers themselves who stated, “It's just for fun, I just use [the] script 'youtube-change-title-video' and I write 'hacked'...” and further added, “Don't judge me I love YouTube.

According to Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert from Surrey University, “to upload and alter video content with code you should require an authorization token. [...] So, either this hacker has found a way around that need for authorization, or they are being economical with the facts, or they obtained the permissions in some other way.

Currently, all the hacked videos have been reverted back to their normal state and the Despacito video is also back on the platform with the same 5 billion views.



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