Last Tuesday, the YouTube channel of several well-known musicians was hijacked by an 'unauthorized source'. Hackers who hijacked had uploaded strange videos on the channel.
Some of the musicians affected include Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Drake, Lil Nas X, Harry Styles, Eminem, Michael Jackson, The Weeknd, Kanye West and many more.
These YouTube channels in total have hundreds of millions of subscribers. Justin Bieber's YouTube channel alone has 68.2 million subscribers.
Hackers posted a bizarre video showing Paco Sanz, a Spanish con artist who was sentenced to two years in prison after committing fraud between 2010 and 2017, and lying about having terminal cancer. They also had time to upload a video of rapper Lil Tjay.
Apparently the actor behind the piracy is the Twitter account @lospelaosbro. They kept on announcing the list of musicians whose YouTube channel had been hijacked, while occasionally asking who could be the next target.
ATTENTION: Major artists are currently being hacked by @lospelaosbro
so far it looks like Juice WRLD, Eminem, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles, Justin Bieber, Travis Scott, Trippie Redd, Michael Jackson, The Weeknd, and even more artist's YouTube channels have been hacked! pic.twitter.com/UtL6yiKxRF
— Music Countdowns (@MCountdowns) April 5, 2022
They also offer cyber protection for celebrities who don't want their accounts hacked. The identity of the owner of the account is not yet known, but they are seen using Paco Sanz's face as their profile picture.
The strange videos were finally deleted after being watched thousands of times. YouTube has yet to acknowledge the incident, but music video hosting service Vevo responded immediately and said they would review the security system.
"Some videos were uploaded to a small number of Vevo artist channels previously by unauthorized sources," a Vevo spokesperson said, as quoted by Gizmodo, Thursday (7/4/2022).
"Even though the artist's channel has been secured and the incident has been resolved, as a best practice, Vevo will carry out a review of our security system."
Vevo itself does not provide direct access to musicians and artists. Videos belonging to these artists are typically uploaded by their label to Vevo, which is then shared on YouTube and other platforms.
Although the piracy by @lospelaosbro has stopped, they seem to be planning their next attack. The day after hacking the channels, @lospelaosbro tweeted, "Give us an idea of the platforms that might be hacked. We are not attacking the government, only private companies," he said.