YouTube has over one billion users who visit the site from all around the world. Users view five billion YouTube videos every single day including record-breaking streams of Fortnite Battle Royale to music videos as the world’s most famous performers upload their latest videos to their official accounts.
However, users who visited the video platform today may have found that YouTube’s most popular video was briefly unavailable. The music video for Despacito, the 2017 chart-topping song from Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, was unavailable for a short amount of time earlier today as part of an apparent hack.
The Despacito music video, which has over five billion views, has since been restored but for a time its title was changed to read “Hacked by Prosox & Kuroi’SH & Shade & Akashi IT & KiraRoot & Xepher & SenpaiWeb & Misao…” The video’s thumbnail was also changed to a screenshot from Netflix show Casa de Papel which features a group of masked figures aiming guns towards a camera.
Although Despacito may be the most high-profile target for a YouTube hack, it seems that this isn’t the only music video that was affected. Music videos for other major artists including Calvin Harris, Katy Perry, Shakira, Drake, Selena Gomez and more also had their titles changed to say that they were “Hacked by Prosox” with thumbnails being changed too.
These music videos and official artist accounts are all managed by Vevo, a joint venture between the Sony, Universal, and Warner music groups, indicating that this is a Vevo-side hack rather than a YouTube side issue. YouTube has found itself at the center of plenty of controversies in recent months but it’s unclear whether the blame lies at the feet of the Google-owned video platform.
Vevo was last hacked back in September 2017 as a result of a LinkedIn phishing scam but it seems that this is unrelated to that incident. One of the hackers, Prosox, whose name is mentioned in the titles of the affected videos, wrote on Twitter that they used a “script” in order to pull off the hack. But the possibility of the hacker using a script has been disputed by some cybersecurity experts.
Vevo has yet to confirm the cause of the breach and in a statement it said that “We are working to reinstate all videos affected and our catalogue to be restored to full working order. We are continuing to investigate the source of the breach.” Vevo also confirmed that the security breach has been “contained” which will hopefully mean that anyone visiting YouTube today, whether that’s to watch Despacito or some robot wrestling will be able to do so unaffected.
Source: Twitter
