Microsoft's YouTube channel pwned

Microsoft's YouTube channel got hacked over the weekend by pranksters who replaced corporate videos with cartoons.

One of the uploaded videos, titled Bingo, showed a character from the LA Noire video game shooting another animated figure in the head. Other videos called on 'Tubers to "post video responses, create new background images for the channel or provide sponsorship", net security firm Sophos reports.

By the time of writing on Monday the channel had been restored to 'normality' - which mainly appears to be models gesticulating wildly in front of tellies.

It's unclear how miscreants managed to gain control to Microsoft's YouTube account, though poor password security by a Microsoft worker is one obvious possibility. One YouTube user suggested that the channel was first established by a Microsoft fan before it was handed over to the software giant. "The flaw is that this account was probably still linked to this kid's email and Microsoft forgot to change it or whatever," the punter suggests.

The Microsoft YouTube channel hack comes a week after hackers broke into the Sesame Street YouTube channel to post hardcore porn clips in place of child-friendly content.

In other internet hijacking news, LG's Australian website was defaced by members of the Intra Web Security Exploit Team on Sunday night. "The attackers replaced the site with some lightly obfuscated JavaScript. The script pretends to be conducting an injection attack as you watch, whilst an expletive-laden track by nerdcore hacker-rapper BeWiz plays in the background," Sophos reports. The hacked www.lg.au website was taken down prior to its return and redirected towards the apparently unsullied www.lg.com/au domain. ®