INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightyoutubeImage caption
The music video's cover image was replaced with a photo from the Spanish TV series
Money Heist
YouTube's music video for the hit song Despacito, which has had over five billion views, has been hacked.More
than a dozen other artists, including Shakira, Selena Gomez, Drake and Taylor Swift are also affected
The original clips had been posted by Vevo.The Despacito video has been removed, but its cover image had shown a group wearing masks and
pointing guns.The hackers, calling themselves Prosox and Kuroi'sh, had written "Free Palestine" underneath the videos.Several of the clips
remain live at time of writing
Of those, the actual video content itself appears to be unaltered
Many titles have been changed to include the names of the hackers, but only some feature the replaced cover image.Image
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Vevo's YouTube page featured one of the affected videos at its top
Both
YouTube and the music video hosting service Vevo have been contacted for comment.A Twitter account that apparently belongs to one of the
hackers posted: "It's just for fun, I just use [the] script 'youtube-change-title-video' and I write 'hacked'.""Don't judge me I love
YouTube," it added.Cyber-security expert Prof Alan Woodward, from Surrey University, said it was unlikely that the hacker was able to gain
access so easily."To upload and alter video content with code you should require an authorisation token," he said."So, either this hacker
has found a way around that need for authorisation, or they are being economical with the facts, or they obtained the permissions in some
