Australia’s popular news channel, 7News, experienced a hacking incident on its YouTube channel that resulted in the promotion of an AI-generated cryptocurrency scam featuring Elon Musk. The breach occurred on Thursday and attracted a significant audience, with approximately 60,000 and 45,000 viewers tuning into the two live streams before they were taken down and later re-uploaded.
During the fraudulent live stream, an artificial intelligence representation of Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, endorsed a cryptocurrency scam while standing in front of a Tesla car. Following this, two additional streams were uploaded, featuring what appeared to be a Tesla Cybertruck launch event scheduled for 2023.
As a result of the hack, Seven’s primary YouTube channel has been taken down, and attempts to access it lead to broken hyperlinks and an unavailability message. The 7News YouTube channel, which was temporarily rebranded as a Tesla account during the attack, has also been removed. Seven has confirmed that they are aware of the situation and are working closely with YouTube to address the issue promptly.
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 that the scam real and available to everyone.
Cryptocurrency scams have become increasingly prevalent in recent years, with several high-profile individuals falling victim to such fraudulent activities. Billionaire businessman Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest is currently engaged in legal action against 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.
In a separate incident, American rapper Waka Flocka Flame faced scrutiny after the controversial launch of his memecoin on the Solana blockchain network. The rapper announced the launch of the Solana-based token FLOCKA on social media platform X, sharing its ticker symbol and contract address with his 1.8 million followers. However, the launch faced criticism due to suspicious activity related to the token’s supply. FLOCKA is just one of many memecoins that have emerged in the recent trend of “celebcoins,” with notable personalities such as rapper Iggy Azalea, Andrew Tate, and former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan also launching memecoins on Solana.
The proliferation of cryptocurrency scams on X has raised concerns, with Binance co-founder Yi He questioning whether Elon Musk would take action to address the issue.
