New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Vevo's YouTube account was recently subjected to a cyber attack that altered, defaced and/or momentarily disabled popular music videos. Hackers broke into the most-viewed music video of all time, Bieber, Luis Fonsi, and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito." It came down for a brief period after its cover image was replaced with a still from Netflix's "Casa de Papel."
According to the BBC, other artists including Shakira, Selena Gomez, Drake, Katy Perry, Chris Brown and Taylor Swift have also had videos defaced by the hackers, who call themselves Prosox and Kuroi'sh. The cyber criminals changed the titles of tracks to include their names and phrases like "Free Palestine" but the actual content was unaltered.
Hackers replaced cover images and added different messages to the videos. One of the hackers reportedly took to Twitter to say it was a simple hack, but Prof. Alan Woodward, a cyber-security expert from Surrey University, said this was more likely complicated than that.
"To upload and alter video content with code you should require an authorization token," he explained. "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."
Vevo addressed the hack in a statement: "Vevo can confirm that a number of videos in its catalogue were subject to a security breach today, which has now been contained. 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."
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