Amid its highly-anticipated Glowtime event on September 9th, Apple’s YouTube channel appears to have suffered a major security breach.
A fake AI-generated video of Apple CEO Tim Cook streamed on the company’s YouTube handle, showing Cook falsely soliciting Bitcoin from people, promising viewers to send them double the amount they would send to a “contribution address” by Dogecoin (DOGE), a popular cryptocurrency.
One scam was featured on a YouTube channel and appeared as ‘Apple US’, complete with a legitimate verification tick.
The videos fall under a common “double-your-money” scam that promises to send back double the amount of any crypto sent to an address. In reality, however, the fraudsters pocket the funds for themselves.
This has led many people on social media to speculate the possibility that Apple’s official YouTube channel may have been hacked during their own Glowtime event. Netizens like Abhishek Bhatnagar shared the video on their social media handles to spread the word:
🚨Breaking 🚨
Apple US YouTube channel hacked? There is a fake Ai video of TimCook streaming on it asking for bitcoin. 😱#AppleEvent pic.twitter.com/b2DOyhxBLL
— Abhishek Bhatnagar (@abhishek) September 9, 2024
Another user shared a screenshot of the live stream with the joking caption, “Tim Cooked Us!”
Tim Cooked us! @Apple‘s @YouTube channel hacked! pic.twitter.com/dL0y0u8Z1T
— frank🎈 (@fmong) September 9, 2024
Those who noticed the deepfakes on X have expressed grave concerns over the growing misuse of technologies like artificial intelligence that manipulate and exploit unsuspecting users. YouTube has also faced criticism for its inability to tackle such scam content.
AI is getting WAY too good
355k people watching a fake “apple” account on @youtube that’s promoting a massive crypto scam lol
The reason there are so many viewers is because the keynote today at 12pm cst@YouTubeCreators pic.twitter.com/O2ufpxdKnF
— BearPig 🧸🐷 (@BearPigCentral) September 9, 2024
YouTube’s support team has acknowledged the scam in an X post on September 9th, urging users to report the video in the official reporting tool.
@AaditDoshi we really appreciate you bringing this to our attention. mind reporting the video in the official reporting tool if you haven’t yet? this page has more info on how to do that: https://t.co/xZxakolqoB
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) September 9, 2024
Fortunately, sham videos are no longer available, and the associated accounts have now been closed. However, Apple has not officially commented on the matter as of yet.
