Paris Prosecutor’s Office announced the arrest of two 18-year-old French citizens.
According to French officials, two hackers identified as “Nassim B.” and “Gabriel K.A.B.,” also known by their respective online handles of “Prosox” and “Kuroi’ish.” According to Variety, both hackers were charged with six and five criminal counts respectively, one of which related to fraudulent data modification “in an automated data processing system.”
The hackers are accused of gaining access to the YouTube account maintained by Vevo, an American multinational video hosting service that is headquartered in Manhattan. Nassim B. and Gabriel K.A.B. defaced multiple music videos, including “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, and other videos by Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Chris Brown, and Shakira.
Vevo has since removed all changes the hackers made on its YouTube videos. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., praised the international cooperation between his office and French authorities.
“Since 2010, my Office has honed its expertise and invested in the resources needed to take on complex cyber investigations,” said District Attorney Vance. “Moreover, our secondment program with the Paris Prosecutor’s Office enables embedded prosecutors to provide on-the-ground support when it comes to malicious cyber activity that affects individuals and organizations in New York and Paris alike.
“I thank our international partners for their collaboration and extraordinary work on this case, and look forward to more and more investigations benefitting from this type of seamless, cross-border coordination.”
This is not the first time that hackers hit the YouTube. In April 2014 hackers from OurMine hacking team hacked accounts displaying posts with titles that begin “#OurMine” and feature the description “Hey, it’s OurMine, don’t worry we are just testing your security, please contact us for more information”.
As for one of the accused hackers Kuroi’ish, he has a long history of targeting high-profile websites. Some of his successful hacks from the past include defacing of South Korea’s Asiana Airlines website, defacement of Google Brazil and Google Morocco domains and defacing of the United States based Uniformed Services University in which he leaked thousands of login credentials online.
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