On July 15, a series of high-profile YouTube hacks targeting Filipino musicians came to light, with the compromised accounts promoting an XRP scam. A deepfake video purporting to show Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse forecasting that XRP would hit $4 was posted on these compromised accounts. This is a typical strategy used to trick people into falling for phishing scams that aim to take their money.

Local media outlet Bitpinas reported that the YouTube pages of popular band Ben&Ben, boyband SB19, and musician Rico Blanco were among those compromised. The hackers used these high-traffic channels to broadcast the fraudulent video.

Ben&Ben’s Fight with Hackers

The popular nine-piece musical group Ben&Ben, who have over 3 million YouTube subscribers, originally informed their fans about the security breach on their official Facebook page. The Filipino band declared that their crew was hard at work regaining control of their account, which had been hacked. The XRP scam video was livestreamed by the compromised account while it was being recovered.

Ben&Ben told their fans that they had successfully retrieved a portion of their account from the attackers a few hours after posting the initial news. Nevertheless, the account kept playing videos that the hackers had uploaded for a while. The XRP scam broadcast has ended as of now.

SB19’s Swift Recovery

Filipino boyband SB19, with 3.6 million YouTube followers, also fell prey to the hackers. The band’s management acted quickly, recovering the account and promptly reporting the incident to the relevant authorities.

Rico Blanco’s Account Compromised

Another victim of the hacks was musician Rico Blanco, who has over 700,000 YouTube subscribers. Reddit users brought attention to the compromise even though Blanco hasn’t released an official comment yet. They also pointed out that his YouTube account is presently restricted due to violations of the platform’s policies. The exact details of the breach remain unclear, but the incident underscores the widespread nature of the attack.

A Constant Threat

The use of deepfake technology in this scam is not new. Scammers have been using customized videos of Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse to promote fraudulent schemes on YouTube for some time.

In December 2023, Reddit users reported a fake video of Garlinghouse asking XRP holders to send their coins to a specific address, promising to send back double the amount. This classic scam tactic has been repeatedly flagged to Google, highlighting the ongoing challenge of combating digital fraud.

As of now, Ripple cryptocurrency (XRP) is trading at around $0.53, up by around 25% in the last seven days. The token has seen a major surge in its market cap, sitting at around $29.7 billion during this time.