Indian Supreme Court YouTube Hack: Ripple, XRP Deepfakes Promoted by Hackers

The Supreme Court of India’s YouTube channel was hacked on Friday. Hackers took over the channel and deleted all previous videos to promote a fraudulent Ripple and XRP investment scheme. While the American crypto payments company warned investors about scams and AI deepfakes, these incidents have continued to mount.

Indian Supreme Court YouTube Channel Hacked

The Indian Supreme Court’s official YouTube channel was compromised to run deepfake of Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and promote a fake XRP investment scheme, ANI reported on September 20. 

Hackers changed the name of the YouTube channel to Ripple, deleting previous videos and urging users to invest in the scam. YouTube has since removed the compromised account for violating its guidelines and the team is looking to restore the channel to the original state.

“This is to inform all concerned that the YouTube channel of Supreme Court of India has been taken down. The services on YouTube channel of Supreme Court of India will be resumed shortly,” Supreme Court said in a statement.

Deepfakes and Scams Related to Ripple and XRP Rising

Ripple has issued several warnings, reminding investors and the crypto community to remain cautious of phishing links and deepfakes. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse also highlighted the growing trend of deepfake scams videos recently.

Scammers are overlaying new words with old video footage from Ripple’s past events and were making them into YouTube videos.

Ripple has a legal action history with YouTube over a previous crypto scam. The crypto payment company sued YouTube for failing to control the volume of scams on its platform. However, it is not clear if the fintech company will be interested in pursuing another legal battle with YouTube this time around.

XRP-related scams are rising after the Ripple vs SEC lawsuit almost ended, pending a potential appeal by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company has gained clarity from the court that XRP is not a security, but need to pay $125 million in penalty.