In a shocking cyberattack, the Supreme Court of India’s official YouTube account was hijacked on September 20 by cryptocurrency scammers.
The hackers took over the channel to livestream fake investment schemes involving XRP, even impersonating Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse. The court’s account, boasting over 217,000 subscribers, was completely rebranded to resemble Ripple and wiped clean of all its previous content.
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Within hours, YouTube removed the compromised channel, and the Supreme Court issued an urgent public notice to alert the public about the breach. While the platform’s response was swift, the damage was done.
By the end of the day, the Supreme Court confirmed the account had been recovered from the hands of the scammers.
However, investigations revealed that the restored channel wasn’t quite the same. It had lost its entire subscriber base, dropping from 217,000 to a mere 15 followers. On top of that, the account was now labeled ‘Vansh,’ a far cry from its original branding.
Google’s cached search results confirmed that the account did indeed belong to the Supreme Court despite the drastic changes.
The breach highlights ongoing security concerns surrounding large platforms like YouTube, which have been increasingly targeted by crypto scammers. Earlier this month, YouTube saw a surge of deepfake livestreams of Apple CEO Tim Cook, promoting crypto scams during the iPhone 16 launch.
While the Supreme Court’s YouTube channel is back online, its full restoration—including its lost followers—remains incomplete, serving as a stark reminder of the constant threats to online security.
