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YouTube hack hits popular music videos, deletes ‘Despacito’ video with over 5 billion views

The defaced video thumbnail for 'Despacito.'. Screenshot / Youtube

YouTube channels of several music artists have been compromised due to the latest case of hacking.

The hackers — who call themselves Prosox and Kuroi’SH — have changed the descriptions and titles of several videos to add their names.

Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s record-breaking music video for Despacito, which has over 5 billion views, disappeared for several hours due to the hack.

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Many other YouTube videos by artists such as DJ Snake, Iggy Azalea, Katy Perry, Chris Brown, Taylor Swift and Maroon5 were vandalized with the song title changed to the names of the hackers who claimed responsibility — Prosox and Kuroi’SH.

Drake’s God’s Plan song title read, Drake – Hacked By Kuroi’SH.

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YouTube hack hits popular music videos, deletes ‘Despacito’ video with over 5 billion views - image

Shakira and Maluma’Chantaje song title read, “x – hacked by prosox & kuroi’sh @OpIsrael :) FreePalestine ft. Maluma.”

Adele’s Hello song title read, “x – Hacked by Prosox & Kuroi’SH greats: 18-25 from JVC.”

YouTube hack hits popular music videos, deletes ‘Despacito’ video with over 5 billion views - image

READ MORE: ‘Despacito’ becomes the most-streamed song of all time

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Despacito — the most-viewed YouTube video of all time — fell victim to the same treatment, with the song title being changed to “Hacked by Prosox & Kuroi’SH & Shade & Akashi IT & KiraRoot & Xepher & SenpaiWeb & Misao…”

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The video showed a still of masked figures aiming guns at the camera. If the viewers pressed play, they were shown it was removed altogether.

Soon after, the song showed this message: “This video has been removed by the user.” Now, the video is back to normal.

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The hackers wrote “Free Palestine” beneath the music videos.

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A YouTube spokesperson told Global News, “After seeing unusual upload activity on a handful of VEVO channels, we worked quickly with our partner to disable access while they investigate the issue.”

A VEVO spokesperson told Global News, “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.”

As of this writing, many defaced videos remain online through the artist’s VEVO accounts.

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