(LEAD) S. Korean government's YouTube channel hacked to broadcast crypto video

All News 21:59 September 03, 2022

(ATTN: UPDATES with the gov't meeting in 7th para)

SEOUL, Sept. 3 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean government's YouTube channel was hacked Saturday, apparently to broadcast a cryptocurrency-related video, but has been restored, according to sources.

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.

The official said the account's ID and password were suspected to have been stolen.

Google, YouTube's parent company, confirmed that the channel had been hacked.

An official at Google Korea said that it is currently looking into the cause of the incident.

The ministry said it held a meeting later on Saturday with officials from relevant agencies to assess the damage and come up with countermeasures.

The attack follows a hack of a YouTube channel operated by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), under the tourism ministry, earlier this week.

According to KTO, the channel, which has around 509,000 subscribers, was initially targeted on Thursday and again the next day. The channel is currently unavailable.

A KTO official said that Google automatically blocks access to the account if it spots abnormal connections.