By
Temitope Olatunji
April 30th, 2024
Soon after the hackers took control of South Korean government’s YouTube channel, the authorities became aware of the breach and immediately started working on restoring the hacked account.
On September 3, the official YouTube channel of South Korean government was hacked. The account was restored within four hours following a proactive intervention, but during this timeframe, the attackers managed to rename the channel to “SpaceX Invest” and share a crypto-related video featuring Elon Musk.
The video broadcast by the hacked channel was showing the interview Elon Musk had given to Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait back in June. The conversation was mainly about the billionaire’s companies Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) and SpaceX purchasing Bitcoin (BTC) as well as accepting Dogecoin (DOGE) as a payment method.
Soon after the hackers took control of South Korean government’s YouTube channel, the authorities became aware of the breach and immediately started working on restoring the hacked account. According to Google, YouTube’s parent company, the account’s ID and password were stolen, which gave the hackers access to the channel.
As per South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the identities of those behind the attack are not clear yet.
South Korean government’s YouTube channel has around 262,000 subscribers. It usually shares videos on government policies and ongoing events in the country.
South Korean YouTube Channel Cyberattacks
The recent attack involving Elon Musk’s interview is not the first time the official channel of South Korean government is becoming a target for hackers. Between Thursday and Saturday, as many as three of the country’s official YouTube channels were hacked.
The Korea Tourism Organization’s YouTube channel known as “Imagine Your Korea” had also been hacked two consecutive days, Thursday and Friday. The channel has around 509,000 subscribers.
KTO representative stated:
“Part of our most popular hit ‘Feel the Rhythm of Korea’ video series had been temporarily erased from our channel, but we were fortunately able to bring back all content.”
Earlier, on August 29, YouTube channel of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art became the target for attackers as well. The hacked account was streaming a video about cryptocurrencies.
Culture Ministry spokesperson said:
“We held an emergency meeting on Saturday, and are currently waiting for results of the investigation to see what measures can be taken to avoid future incidents.”
Notably, both the KTO and the Culture Ministry confirmed that their channels were operated by their own staff. Now, both the organizations are considering operating a subchannel as backup source. While the investigation into the cyberattacks is going on, the channel of the Korea Tourism Organization is not available.