VEVO Releases Statement On Eminem & Other A-Listers Having Their YouTube Accounts Hacked

Music video network, Vevo holds a number of big names under it’s banner on YouTube. Recently, hacking attack affected a number of artists on the platform. If you were trying to watch Eminem, Justin Bieber, Drake, Taylor Swift, Lil Nas X, The Weeknd and other artists on YouTube this morning, you may not have seen what you expected.

Vevo was reportedly hacked by someone with the Twitter handle @lospelaosbro, who uploaded some extremely strange clips. Those included video of a rapper called Lil Tjay and a man called Paco Sanz, who was sent to jail for scamming donations after lying about having cancer. 

Another video on Harry Styles’ YouTube channel was also vandalize. The title on the track read, “Daddy Yankee – SPEED IS THE BEST HACKED BY @LOSPELAOSBRO ON TWITTER.” According to the Daily Mail, it showed a group of men dancing to an altered version of “Hit the Road Jack” while wearing hoodies with the word “speed” on them.

Following the incident, Vevo acknowledged the incident to The Verge. The music network stated that “some videos were directly uploaded to a small number of Vevo artist channels earlier today by an unauthorized source.” They also said that no pre-existing content was accessible to the attacker and said that it would be “conducting a review of our security systems.”

Vevo is owned primarily by music labels Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. The company states that it controls “the largest network of music channels on YouTube,” and essentially acts like a contractor, allowing distributors to merge Vevo channels with existing channels as “Official Artist Channels.” 

According to a Vevo FAQ, artists don’t post their videos directly, but send them to “content providers” for uploading. The hacked artist channels belong to multiple labels and Vevo said that they have now been secured and the incident is resolved. Meanwhile, we will be on the lookout for more updates. Stay tuned to Thirsty.

What’s your take on this story? Sound off in the comments.