Technology Vevo hacked, 3.12 TB of data leaked (Sept. 19 2017: Update with prequel)

[tom_mai78101]

There’s a good chance that you’ve watched a popular music video from Vevo, either via YouTube, Vevo’s website or its mobile app.

Most popular music artists release their videos through Vevo these days. The company – a joint venture between Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Alphabet Inc and Abu Dhabi Media – has taken the position that MTV and MuchMusic used to have in delivering music videos to the general public.

Vevo has secured about $200 million USD in advertising revenue this year, on the strength of the tremendous popularity of videos from artists such as Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Rihanna.

Well now, Vevo confirms that they’ve been hit by a huge cyber attack.

A Vevo spokesperson said to Gizmodo on Friday:

(We) can confirm that Vevo experienced a data breach as a result of a phishing scam via LinkedIn. We have addressed the issue and are investigating the extent of exposure.

OurMine has claimed responsibility for the attack.


Read more here. (Naked Security)

 

[jonas]

Cool news Tom but you left out the best part: the reason why OurMine actually leaked the data.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Good enough to warrant a follow-up post (prequel, if you will):

Hackers dumped Vevo’s celebrity dossiers after a company rep questioned their skills

The hacking group OurMine has been breaking into company networks and social accounts for years, usually inflicting more embarrassment than outright damage — but when they gained access to Vevo servers last night, the company somehow managed to provoke something worse.

According to a screenshot posted by OurMine, the group contacted a Vevo representative at 6:10PM with news of the compromise, only to be met with profanity and disbelief.

In response, OurMine posted 3.1 terabytes of data from Vevo’s servers, a leak first reported by Gizmodo. Browsable from OurMine’s site, the data included Vevo’s private dossiers on 90 different artists, including Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, One Direction and U2. Other documents included social-media strategy memos and instructions for disabling the office’s alarm system.

Despited the public airing, OurMine insisted they would delete the data if contacted by a Vevo representative — and they seem to have kept their word. This morning, the data abruptly disappeared from the site. A new message on explained, “we deleted the files because of a request from VEVO.” Attempts to access the data redirected to a Vevo-branded Box login page.

OurMine didn’t explain how they’d gained access to the data, but in a statement to Variety, Vevo attributed the compromise to “a phishing attack through LinkedIn.”


Read more here. (The Verge)