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Footage of AI-generated Elon Musk crypto-scam videos flood Channel Seven’s YouTube brands as channels are taken offline.
Australian free-to-air broadcaster Channel Seven has confirmed that several of its YouTube channels appear to have been hacked, with the channel’s official content replaced by Elon Musk-based cryptocurrency scams.
The footage was a live stream of an AI-generated Musk exhorting viewers to deposit bitcoin, Ethereum, or Dogecoin to a particular website, with the promise that any investment would be automatically doubled and returned to the sender.
According to News.com.au, the stream had more than 45,000 viewers at one point and ran for five hours before Seven’s main landing page on the streaming site was replaced with an error message.
However, at the time of writing (see screenshot), a search for “seven news” returns a listing of “Latest from 7NEWS Australia”, which is still dominated by the scam videos, apparently hosted by the 7NEWS Australia channel.
Clicking on that link leads to a different channel entirely – @tesla.elonstream – currently hosting three alleged live streams titled “LIVE: Tesla’s unveils a masterpiece: The Tesla that will change the car industry forever – Tesla CEO”.
That channel is, curiously, hosting two Channel Seven news stories, dating from one to four hours ago.
A Channel Seven spokesperson confirmed the incident.
“Seven is aware that some of its branded YouTube channels are not appearing as they should. Seven is investigating and working with YouTube to resolve the situation as soon as possible,” a spokesperson told News.com.au.
Elon Musk is a common hook for cryptocurrency scams due in part to Musk’s own trading in cryptocurrencies and the loyalty of his fanbase.
“I am amazed that people still fall for these straightforward, well-known, and apparent scams,” said security researcher Dr Johannes B Ullrich following a series of Musk-related scams that began to circulate on YouTube in January 2023.
“But crypto coin users may represent a self-selecting target group.”
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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