Australia’s 7News YouTube Channel Hacked to Promote AI Elon Musk Crypto Scam
Australia’s popular news channel 7News has seen its YouTube channel hacked to broadcast an AI-generated cryptocurrency scam featuring Elon Musk.
The breach, which occurred on Thursday, attracted a significant audience, with around 60,000 and 45,000 viewers watching the two live streams respectively before they were taken down and later re-uploaded.
The fraudulent live stream showcased an artificial intelligence representation of Tesla’s owner and CEO, Elon Musk, endorsing a cryptocurrency scam while standing in front of a Tesla car.
Subsequently, two additional streams were uploaded, featuring what appeared to be a Tesla Cybertruck launch event set to take place in 2023.
Seven’s Primary YouTube Channel is Taken Down
Following the hack, Seven’s primary YouTube channel has been taken down, and attempts to access it result in broken hyperlinks with an unavailability message.
Additionally, the 7News YouTube channel, which was temporarily rebranded as a Tesla account during the attack, has also been removed.
A spokesperson for Seven confirmed that the company is aware of the situation and is actively collaborating with YouTube to address the issue promptly.
“Seven is investigating and working with YouTube to resolve the situation as soon as possible.”
@elonmusk Live cryptoScam using your image on YouTube now.
Channel says" 7NEWS Australia "
It appears as Tesla channel after clicking on the video when it starts.
Notified YouTube but no "Scam" category to report in drop menu.
Good luck fixing this and getting it shut down. pic.twitter.com/M6pG47xS2M— Greg Watts (@MeggaWatti_) June 27, 2024
The scam operated by enticing viewers to scan a Tesla-branded QR code displayed on the screen and deposit money into the scheme, promising them the opportunity to “double their crypto assets.”
The AI-generated Musk impersonator emphatically claimed, “I am not joking, this is absolutely real and available to all of you.”
Cryptocurrency scams have witnessed a surge in recent years, with various high-profile individuals falling victim to such fraudulent activities.
Billionaire businessman Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest is currently engaged in legal action with Facebook over fraudulent crypto ads that misused his likeness.
The Australian corporate watchdog has been actively shutting down investment scam and phishing websites related to fraudulent cryptocurrency investments, having taken down over 2500 such sites since July of the previous year.
Earlier this year, the federal government identified Russian cyber hacker Aleksandr Ermakov as the individual responsible for the 2022 Medibank hack, compromising the personal information of more than four million Australians.
Shady Meme Coin Drops
Last week, American rapper Juaquin James Malphurs, better known as Waka Flocka Flame, came under scrutiny after the controversial launch of his memecoin on the Solana blockchain network.
The rapper from Atlanta took to social media platform X on Monday morning to announce the launch of the Solana-based token FLOCKA, sharing its ticker symbol and contract address with his 1.8 million followers.
However, the launch soon faced criticism as blockchain sleuth ZachXBT pointed out suspicious activity related to the token’s supply.
FLOCKA is just one of many memecoins that have emerged in the recent trend of “celebcoins.”
Notable personalities such as rapper Iggy Azalea, Andrew Tate, former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, and others have also launched memecoins on Solana.
Just recently, Binance co-founder Yi He raised concerns about the proliferation of cryptocurrency scams on X, questioning whether Musk would take action to tackle the issue.
