Scammers Breach Official South Korean YouTube Channel, Play Elon Musk Clips Discussing Crypto

The exploiters also attempted to promote cryptocurrencies via the channel.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by David Delima | Updated: 5 September 2022 11:48 IST

Scammers Breach Official South Korean YouTube Channel, Play Elon Musk Clips Discussing Crypto

Photo Credit: Reuters

The ID and password linked to this page was stolen leading to the attack

Highlights

Google Korea acknowledged and confirmed the incident.
The channel was associated with Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and T
The hack was carried out after midnight on September 3

A YouTube channel belonging to the South Korean government was recently compromised by hackers. Once the controls to this channel were accessed, the hackers renamed the channel ‘SpaceX Invest'. Soon after, videos of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk discussing cryptocurrencies began playing on-loop on the hacked channel. It took four hours for relevant agencies to restore the breached YouTube channel. Before that could happen however, the exploiters tried to promote some cryptocurrencies via the channel as well.

The channel was associated with Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. As per South Korean news agency Yonhap, an official at YouTube Korea had acknowledged and confirmed the incident.

The hack attack that hit this channel at around 3:30 AM on September 3, was carried out after the ID and password linked to this page was stolen.

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The videos of Musk talking up cryptocurrencies on this page were noticed by the ministry early morning after which concerned officials were put to the task of getting the access to this YouTube channel back.

This is not the first time, hackers tried to lure in investors in the sector via breached government sites.

Last week itself, a YouTube account run by the Korea Tourism Organisation (KTO) was hacked. The channel was followed by over 500,000 people has been unavailable since it was recovered.

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The crypto sector, that usually maintains its market cap above the trillion-dollar mark, has recently become a hotspot for cyber criminals.

Social networking platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube have become significant tools for crypto hackers to get in touch with potential victims.

YouTube, which is a Google-owned platform, is riddled with phishing and crypto scams, researchers from the search engine giant's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) had revealed last year.

Deeper analysis into the matter has revealed that hacked YouTube channels were trading within the range of $3 (roughly Rs. 225) to $4,000 (roughly Rs. 3 lakh).

In January 2025, hackers took control of several YouTube channels that belonged to crypto-supporting influencers as well as Indian exchanges, such as CoinDCX, WazirX, and Unocoin. The hackers posted video instructions asking people to wire them money in cryptocurrency. A wallet link was added by the hackers in the description section of the video.

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Further reading: Cryptocurrency, South Korea, Hacker, Hack, YouTube

Radhika Parashar

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Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More