A famous Brazilian male stripper greeted Cartoon Network viewers worldwide when they tried to stream shows over the weekend – thanks to a pair of hackers that took aim at the cable network’s websites across 16 different regions.
In the aftermath, entire Cartoon Network sites and video players have been taken down while remediation continues.
The Brazilian stripper, Ricardo Milos, is known for wearing a red bandana on his head and an American flag thong. His unique approach to erotic dance fashion has propelled him to internet meme status; and the hackers, apparent fans, placed Milos videos on the Cartoon Network sites, along with various Arabic memes and Brazilian music vids.
According to reports, the defacement was carried out by a pair of Brazilian hackers who exploited a vulnerability in Cartoon Network’s website management platform. The compromise occurred April 25, and the content stayed up over the weekend until the channel was notified April 28. While the rogue content has been removed, some sites’ video players were still down as of this report.
Both Cartoon Network UK and Cartoon Network Russia issued short statements acknowledging the issue. In a media statement the network said that “sites have been temporarily deactivated” and that IT teams are “working hard to relaunch the sites.”
The attack affected Cartoon Network portals for Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, the Middle East and Africa (MENA), the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Turkey and the UK, according to reports from the Twitterverse.
About 6+ hours ago someone hacked most of the Cartoon Network websites (by language) and replaced them with random shit.
List of countries that have been targeted:
UK
Hungary
Romania
German
Russia
Poland
Czech
Denmark
Arabic
Norway
Netherlands
Italy
Turkey
African pic.twitter.com/anRB2PnP2g
— Flor Geneva (@Fl0r_Geneva) April 28, 2019
Typically, website defacement is carried out for political/hacktivist/vendetta purposes, but it’s unclear why the Turner-owned network, home to kids’ hits like Adventure Time, would be a target in this case. The last high-profile defacement came when hackers infiltrated a Wall Street Journal webpage in an attempt to promote YouTube celebrity “PewDiePie” (given name Felix Kjellberg), who had come under fire for in the pages of the WSJ for what the outlet termed anti-Semitic behavior.
Taking aim at media targets could be a new trend as well; in April, the Weather Channel’s linear TV feed was knocked offline by a cyberattack – again, no motive was apparent.