A popular South Korean YouTube entertainment channel with over 8 million subscribers, along with the company’s streaming content platform, was hacked on Saturday. The channel’s name and profile picture were replaced with those of a cryptocurrency company, and all previously hosted content was removed and replaced.
Total Variety Network (tvN), a pay television channel that broadcasts South Korean entertainment programming, announced on its website that the tvN DRAMA YouTube channel, which features content from its TV shows, was hacked by an external cyberattack in the early morning of July 20. Additionally, tvN’s streaming platform Tving was also targeted by hackers, prompting the network to post an announcement on this site as well.
According to tvN, hackers changed the tvN DRAMA YouTube channel name to ‘Ripple,’ a cryptocurrency payment platform. The channel ID was also changed to ‘@official-xrp,’ referring to the cryptocurrency tokens used on the Ripple platform.
Furthermore, the entertainment videos posted by tvN disappeared and were replaced with Ripple-related videos promoting the cryptocurrency. Additionally, the channel’s profile picture was changed to the Ripple logo.
“Once we realized the channel had been hacked, we acted swiftly to recover all the videos with YouTube’s assistance,” tvN said in an announcement.
The Readable reached out to tvN for comments on the hacking incident; however, the company did not respond by the time of this article’s publication.
Ripple had previously filed a lawsuit against YouTube in April 2020, accusing the platform of failing to protect users from cryptocurrency scams carried out by fraudulent social media profiles. Ripple claimed that scammers had hijacked YouTube channels with hundreds or thousands of subscribers to impersonate the company or its CEO, Brad Garlinghouse.
Additionally, the company alleged that some of these scam accounts received ‘official verification badges’ and generated revenue through deceptive advertising practices.
In their complaint against YouTube, Ripple alleged that scammers posted fraudulent videos on fake channels, attempting to deceive victims into sending $1,000 (1.39 million won) worth of XRP with promises of a return of 5 million XRP valued at $1 million (1.4 billion won).
Victims who fell for the scam received neither the promised returns nor refunds of their initial investment. Ripple also claimed that YouTube allegedly received 350 complaints about these impersonation scams but either ignored or inadequately addressed them.
Related article: YouTube channels earn $525,000 from fake news on soccer player, AI firm says
A South Korean artificial intelligence company reported on Monday that over 190 YouTube channels have allegedly created hundreds of fake news videos about South Korean soccer player Lee Kang-in. These channels reportedly earned approximately 700 million won ($525,000) from their activities.
The AI company Pyler reported that after soccer player Lee Kang-in was involved in a dispute with the national team captain, Son Heung-min, just before the Asian Cup semifinal last month, they identified 361 instances of fake news about Lee on YouTube. Between February 14 and 27, 195 channels disseminated this misleading content, accumulating a total of 69 million views. Pyler estimated that the creators of these videos earned approximately $525,000 in profit as a result.
Channel owners capitalized on the public controversy surrounding the star player by employing provocative titles and thumbnails to maximize their earnings. Despite Lee Kang-in, who plays for Paris Saint-Germain, issuing a public apology on Instagram for his conduct during the tournament on February 21, he continued to face severe criticism. This ongoing negative attention reportedly even affected the advertisement industry. READ MORE
