Spacex Channel Hacked
Carlos Beirise
Since the hack disrupted operations on these YouTube channels a few hours ago, some of Starship Entertainment's hard work has already resulted in flying colours of success. The hackers had initiated the Elon Musk: SpaceX Crew-8 launch livestream on each of these groups' channels. While that has been deleted over time, the channels still bear the SpaceX moniker.
Fans noticed that while the currently active groups under Starship's banner were hacked, channels of girl group WJSN and soloists Jeong Se Woon, K. Will and others emerged untouched in the blissful distance. On the other hand, Monsta X, IVE and Cravity fans were baffled to see their favourites' content missing on YouTube. The company is gradually gaining access to these accounts (and the main Starship Entertainment account) as some name changes have successfully translated well. The content is yet to surface on these accounts.
Starship Entertainment's main account still shows some older videos in addition to Cravity's recent release, Love or Die. Other videos are yet to be recovered. The alleged hackers seem to be in the wind for now, but many fans are already accusing Tesla CEO Elon Musk of using these pages as yet another launching pad for his project's promotions.
Several fans have jumped on to meme the predicament as a coping mechanism while the unprecedented takeover has significantly hurt others. Monsta X fans have especially taken a big hit, considering four of its six members had temporarily departed from the K-pop scene to complete their mandatory military duties. Monbebes had notably relied on the group's recent enlistment vlogs and other previously shot content on the YouTube channel to fill the void of currently paused group activities.
An episode of IVE's YouTube web reality show - 1,2,3 IVE - was also scheduled to drop on the girl group's YouTube page today. Due to the turbulent online conditions, the broadcast remains postponed. According to a recent X (formerly Twitter) statement, its updated release time will be announced later.
On the 4th, Starship Entertainment reported to Edaily that their artists' official channels had been compromised. They are currently working with YouTube to resolve the issue and apologized for any inconvenience caused to the users, promising to make efforts to quickly restore the content.
Earlier that day, speculation arose that the official YouTube channels of Starship Entertainment's groups, including IVE, Monsta X, and Cravity, had been hacked. Their channel names were changed to 'SpaceX', and all content was made private. IVE and Monsta X's channels have over 3.37 million and 2.57 million followers respectively, while Cravity's channel is close to 800,000 followers.
SpaceX is an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. There have been several instances where various YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook accounts were hacked and flooded with content related to SpaceX, suggesting the work of a specific hacker or hacking group.
Why do hackers go through all the trouble then do absolutely nothing when they get control of the account? I'd post one of them cracked videos of Wonyoung eating the strawberry or something. At least do something funny with it.
At 3:30 a.m., the government's official channel on the video-sharing platform appeared to have been hacked as its name changed to "SpaceX Invest" and showed a live broadcast on cryptocurrency that included an interview with American billionaire and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
An official at the culture and tourism ministry, which manages the YouTube account, said they had become aware of the situation at 6 a.m., took security measures and restored the account at 7:20 a.m.
For most of its tenure, the group had five members. The former fifth member was Corl, who was kicked out of the group in February 2019 after he insulted a fan of The Pals. The group later disbanded in June 2019 and Denis, Alex, Sub and Sketch all went on their separate channels.
The Pals were originally named "MayaTOOTS" but later changed their name to "SubZeroExtabyte" before changing their name again to "The Pals". The channel was created by Sub on January 24, 2012. During this time, Sub along with Sketch would post Minecraft machinimas and animations on the channel.
Denis, Alex, and Corl joined the group later on, and Sketch left the group but later re-joined in September 2016. They made a series on Minecraft Hotel, a series on FNAF Origins, and a Roblox version of FNAF Origins. They focused on Roblox videos solely when Sketch re-joined the group. They also made the Minecraft series "PalsCraft".
In early 2019, Corl would come under fire after he harassed a fan on Twitter. He sent a series of rude tweets directed toward the fan, resulting in his removal from The Pals. Angered, Corl's fans then sent hurtful messages to the fan, as they blamed her for Corl being kicked out. This led the fan to attempt suicide. Denis publicly stated on February 25, 2019 that Corl was no longer a member of The Pals.[1] The group subsequently went inactive on YouTube.
On June 28, 2019, Denis made a community post on the Pals' YouTube channel announcing that the group was disbanding.[2] The four remaining members of the group would go on to pursue their own YouTube channels.
On June 28, 2021, the 2 year anniversary of The Pals' official disbandment, Denis tweeted a screenshot of him, Alex, Sketch and Sub in the Minecraft Time SMP Server that was speculated to be a sign of the group's reunion.[3]
On July 1, 2021, The Pals briefly reunited on a Minecraft Time SMP episode called "The Pals REUNION! - Minecraft Time SMP: Episode 23 - GRAND SHEEP RACING". However, Denis later stated that it doesn't mean that The Pals are not getting back together.[4][5]
On May 18, 2023, the Pals channel was hacked by a SpaceX scam stream, resulting in the privatization of every video on the Pals channel. On May 22, the channel was recovered and the videos were restored. In a tongue-in-cheek response to the hack, the channel updated their about page, adding "- and occasionally get hacked by Elon Musk."[6]
The uploaded videos feature Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX CEO, discussing cryptocurrency with the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey. The video shown above was originally part of The B Word conference, hosted by Ark Invest.
Along with the main channel, two other Linus Media Group channels, TechLinked and Techquickie, were hacked. The Techquickie channel has been renamed to "Tesla", with live videos of Musk discussing crypto also being uploaded.
It also seems that the malicious actors responsible for the hack have uploaded de-listed Linus Tech Tips videos. Some of the published videos feature instructions such as "**DO NOT USE**" and "Do Not Upload" in their titles.
When attempting to access one of the crypto scam uploads on the channel, it was found that it had been taken due to the closure of the account. The scam videos uploaded cannot be accessed currently, suggesting that YouTube has worked to stop the hackers in their tracks.
Linus Tech Tips isn't the first popular YouTube channel to suffer a hack. Throughout 2022 and 2023, a number of high-profile accounts have been affected by hackers, including the official British Army YouTube channel.
In the British Army channel hack, cryptocurrency scams were once again promoted by malicious actors. The organization's Twitter account was also hacked, with the profile name, picture, and background image being changed to resemble affiliation with the "Possessed" NFT project, launched by PSSSD labs in early 2022.
With numerous channels being hacked over the past year, many are wondering how YouTube will handle this major security issue. Will more be done to protect accounts or mitigate damage during hacks? Time will tell.
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