In a shocking cyberattack, the popular Australian news broadcaster– 7News YouTube channel, boasting 1.71 million subscribers, was hijacked to live-stream an AI-generated Elon Musk prompting a cryptocurrency scam. The fraudulent streams drew significant attention, with one attracting 60,000 views and another 45,000 before they were eventually taken down.
The livestreams featured an AI-generated representation of Musk standing in front of a Tesla car, touting a scheme that promised to “double your assets” if viewers scanned a QR code and deposited money.
The scam message proclaimed, “Let’s make this evening unforgettable and double your wealth with Tesla.” Following the takedown of these streams, two additional videos showcasing a Tesla Cybertruck launch event from 2023 were uploaded.
Seven’s primary YouTube channel has been removed, and the hyperlinks leading to the page are broken, displaying an unavailable message. A spokesperson for Seven acknowledged that “Seven is investigating and working with YouTube to resolve the situation as soon as possible.”
This incident marks another troubling chapter for the media company, which recently laid off 150 staff members, including three senior executives, amid declining advertising revenues and an anticipated drop in commercial revenue from Meta.
Cryptocurrency scams have surged in recent years, with notable figures like billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest entangled in legal battles with tech giants such as Facebook over fraudulent crypto ads suing their likenesses.
Just this week, rock band Metallica’s X (Twitter) was hacked to promote a fake crypto token, “METAL,” before being reclaimed by the band’s management.
In 2020, high-profile accounts, including those of Elon Musk, US President Joe Biden, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, were also hacked to promote Bitcoin scams. Since July last year, Australia’s corporate watchdog has shut down over 2,500 investment scam and phishing websites, many related to crypto investments.
