In a bizarre incident on Tuesday, a hacker removed the song Despacito, the most popular video on YouTube, and hacked into accounts of artists like Maroon 5 and Shakira. However, few hours after the alleged hack, the videos were accessible on the site, with the number of views unaltered.
The hacker, who goes by the name Prosox and Kuroi'sh is suspected to have removed Despacito by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee – which recorded more than 5 billion views on YouTube to date – earlier on Tuesday. The hacker’s title has been removed from all the artist profiles which were functioning under Vevo.
Multiple organisations tracking the incident have also seen the attack, and accounts of popular artists like Drake and Selena Gomez among others have also been vandalised.
All the artists targeted by the hacker run their YouTube account via Vevo, a multinational video-hosting service founded in 2009. The hackers haven’t shared the intention behind removing the popular video from the platform.
We cannot independently confirm why YouTube was hacked, and have reached out to the company for their response to the incident.
YouTube’s going through a trying week after a woman attacked its campus recently. A woman opened fire at YouTube's headquarters near San Francisco last week, injuring at least three victims before taking her own life, police said.
Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as Nasim Aghdam of Southern California. Police did not release any further information on the suspect or speculate on her motives for the shooting at the YouTube office, which is owned by Alphabet Inc's Google.
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