Several well-known South Korean Youtube channels have reportedly been attacked by hackers in recent months. Most hackers who gained access used the platform to upload dubious videos about cryptocurrencies.
The South Korean government’s official Youtube channel was among the victims of the hacking incident. Cybercriminals took advantage of this cyber attack earlier this month to use Elon Musk’s image in a cryptocurrency fraud they were promoting.
Hackers allegedly targeted the Korea Tourism Organization, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, and the South Korean government’s Youtube sites, according to recent coverage.
The hackers in the government’s case renamed the account “SpaceX Invest” to trick consumers into thinking that it was associated with Elon Musk’s spacecraft company.
Furthermore, the scammers posted videos of interviews in which the richest individuals in the world discussed cryptocurrencies and bitcoin. This issue was swiftly detected by the government a few hours later.
Additionally, individual Youtube channels were also hacked. Hackers shared videos of malware that claims investors could download and presumably use to make money, following their security breach of a popular channel with over 560,000 subscribers.
The team leader at AhnLab’s security emergency response center, Park Tae-hwan, explained that the majority of the hackers’ actual aim was to obtain access to well-known Youtube channels and spread false crypto schemes to the general public.
The three primary hacking tactics — according to Korea University professor Kim Seung-joo — are malware, phishing attacks and credential stuffing, and information stealing. According to him, the scammers were savvy enough to target Youtube channels instead of the website as Google would have dealt with the issue very quickly.
