OurMine hacks Vevo, leaks 3 terabytes of internal data

More than 3 terabytes of office documents, videos and other promotional materials belonging to video-hosting service Vevo were leaked online after hackers breached the service late Thursday.

Infamous hacking group OurMine claimed responsibility for the breach of Vevo, a joint venture between the “big three” record companies (Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group.

OurMine was also behind this year”s Game of Thrones leak, the WikiLeaks DNS attack, and the hacking of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg”s Twitter and Pinterest accounts.

Roughly 3.12 terabytes of files were leaked online, and at least two of the documents appear sensitive, Gizmodo reports.

The leaked material is mostly benign. The files include music charts, social media content planned to go online, artist details, etc. One leaked document shows an alarm code (probably changed by now) for Vevo”s UK offices in plain text.

OurMine reportedly had reached out to Vevo and was told off. The group then hacked a Vevo employee”s Okta account, accessed the internal files and leaked them online. In an email to Gizmodo, the hackers said “If they asked us to remove the files then we will.”

A Vevo spokesperson said “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 hacks companies and websites as a way of advertising its prowess, but at the same time the group positions itself as an ethical, white hat hacking group. However, their practices are controversial and, at times, detrimental to the businesses that they target – such as HBO”s loss of viewers because of the Game of Thrones leak.

In 2017, OurMine also hacked the Twitter accounts of DJ David Guetta, the New York Times, WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), Playstation Network, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, as well as several high-profile Youtube and Facebook accounts.

More recently, the group had a bone to pick with whistleblowing site WikiLeaks, leaving a tongue-in-cheek message on the front page as evidence that the site could be hacked, after WikiLeaks challenged the group to try and do it.