Vevo’s YouTube account appears to have fallen victim to hackers today, as a number of high-profile music videos have been defaced. The most-viewed YouTube video of all time, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito,” disappeared from YouTube briefly after being defaced by hackers.

The video’s image was altered and replaced with a masked gang holding guns (from Netflix show Casa de Papel), and the description was changed by hackers calling themselves Prosox and Kuroi’sh. Lots of other popular music videos have also defaced. 

YouTube is turning passive viewers into cryptocurrency miners, and Google isn't happy. The issue became apparent earlier in the week as complaints surfaced on social media claiming that YouTube ads were raising red flags in anti-virus software.

A service called Coinhive was hijacking a viewer's CPU and using its power to mine crypto. A Friday blog post from Trend Micro, an international cybersecurity company, confirmed the sharp uptick in Coinhive use earlier in the week, pinning it to a "malvertising campaign" that subverted a Google ad service used on YouTube. 

Cybercrime, like any other enterprise is a business, albeit an illegal one. Apart from targeting individuals, businesses and governments, cybercriminals also cash in by creating, using and marketing malware to other crooks. It appears however, that the age old adage of "honour among thieves" does not apply to cybercriminals these days.

Security researchers have uncovered cybercrooks advertising and distributing phishing kits, that come with how-to videos and links to additional information, to wannabe hackers via YouTube. The catch however is that the advertised kits come with a secret backdoor that sends all the phished data back to the author.

Researchers have shed light on a worrying loophole that could be used by hackers to take control of your smartphone using its built-in voice recognition software. By burying mangled voice commands within YouTube videos, a team of experts found that they could instruct a nearby device to carry out potentially harmful actions.

Voice interfaces have become a common feature on modern smartphones, allowing us an extra level of convenience in diary planning, hands-free messaging or just settling pub debates on pointless trivia. Yet while the likes of Siri, Cortana and Google Now have made our smartphones smarter, they have also unwittingly added a whole new level of vulnerability.

YouTube is getting ready to start selling tickets. Google’s video site appears to be finalizing launch plans for its long-in-the-making subscription service, and industry sources say they’ve been told to expect a launch near the end of October.

A blast email from YouTube to content owners who share ad revenue with the site, telling them they have to agree to new terms by Oct. 22 or their “videos will no longer be available for public display or monetization in the United States,” helps support that timeline. But YouTube, which floated the idea of a new subscription service nearly a year ago, has never publicly committed to a timeline.

YouTube may be blocked by Russian internet providers starting late July. The Russian media supervision service Roskomnadzor added some videos posted there to its list of banned webpages due to copyright infringement.

YouTube might be banned for illegally posting several Russian TV series owned by the Russian TNT-network company. Russian authorities also warned internet users that adding particular YouTube page indexes to the ban list may lead to the blocking of the whole website by some ISPs making it impossible for their clients to access the site. Roskomnadzor has repeatedly provided notifications demanding YouTube delete the illegal content. However, the video is still available.

A coalition of consumer and children security advocacy groups plans to urge federal regulators to investigate a YouTube video app aimed at children that the groups say disregards long-established safeguards limiting advertising to young audiences. 

The YouTube Kids app blends video programming and ads in ways that deceive children and parents, according to the groups. A letter will be sent to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday asking it to examine whether the app violates rules prohibiting unfair and deceptive marketing practices. Google Inc-owned YouTube is the world's most popular video website. 

The web search giant has been recruiting moderators around the globe in order to help prevent YouTube from being hi-jacked for propaganda by militants. The search giant will not disclose the number of new staff. To deal with the problem it has Arabic speakers in every time zone now.

The 22-minute film of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh being burned alive was first uploaded to YouTube, where it remained for a number of hours before moderators removed it. However, by that time, images were already being circulated on Twitter messenger. The tactic has had a major effect in helping Islamic State to radicalise new followers.

With Google processing 40,000 search queries a second — or 1.2 trillion a year — it's a safe bet that many of those doing the Googling are kids. Little surprise then that beginning next year the tech giant plans to create specific versions of its most popular products for those 12 and younger.

The most likely candidates are those that are already popular with a broad age group, such as search, YouTube and Chrome. Google would not offer a timetable for the rollout. Google wants to be thoughtful about what we do, giving parents the right tools to oversee their kids' use products. So the better approach is to simply see to it that the tech is used in a better way.

It's easy to understand why privacy advocates and policymakers are sounding alarms about online privacy in general – and singling out Google in particular. If you use Google's search engine, Google knows what you searched for as well as your activity on partner Web sites that use its ad services.

The more Google knows about you, the more it can match you to an advertiser who thinks you are an ideal customer. Advertisers are willing to pay more for ads served to ideal potential customers. For instance, airlines want to target people who love to travel. Want to find out all the things Google knows about you? Here are 6 links that will show you some of the data Google has about you.