Hackers hack into Vevo’s YouTube account; delete and deface many popular videos
Hackers delete Despacito video which was watched more than 5 billion times
Unidentified Hacker(s) took down several popular videos hosted on Vevo’s YouTube account. The Despacito video has been removed, but its cover image had shown a group wearing masks and pointing guns. The hackers, calling themselves Prosox and Kuroi’sh, had written “Free Palestine” underneath the videos. More than a dozen other artists, including Shakira, Selena Gomez, Drake and Taylor Swift are also affected. The original clips had been posted by Vevo.
The Spanish-language hit “Despacito” was released in January 2017 and went on to break several records in music streaming, including one for the single with the most weeks at No.1 in the US, with 16 consecutive weeks.
The BBC reports that a Twitter account appearing to belong to one of the hackers posted: “It’s just for fun, I just use [the script] ‘youtube-change-title-video’ and I write ‘hacked’.
