The official YouTube channel of the Supreme Court of India, where hearings of the cases listed before Constitution Benches are live-streamed, was hacked on Friday. It is now showing videos promoting XRP, a cryptocurrency developed by US-based company Ripple Labs.
Moments after the security breach, the Supreme Court’s YouTube channel showed a blank video with the title “Brad Garlinghouse: Ripple Responds To The SEC’s $2 Billion Fine! XRP PRICE PREDICTION”.
Now the channel’s link has been disabled and those visiting are shown a 404 error message which further reads, “This page isn’t available. Sorry about that. Try searching for something else.”
For the unversed, Brad Garlinghouse is the CEO of Ripple Labs and his firm is in legal disputes with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
According to a report by The Verge, in 2020, Ripple sued YouTube for failing to stop hackers from impersonating Brad Garlinghouse.
SC YouTube channel hacked
The Supreme Court began to live-stream hearings of all the cases listed before Constitution benches and matters involving public interest in 2018. Since then, it is the first time the apex court’s YouTube channel has been hacked.
The incident of hacking of the YouTube channel comes at a time when the apex court was scheduled to hear several priority cases including a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking a fixed time limit for the Centre to notify the appointment of judges recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium.
The SC was also preparing for the hearing of a plea from the Muslim side contesting an Allahabad High Court order, which rejected their challenge on the maintainability of cases filed by Hindu parties related to the Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah dispute.
Recently, the hearings on the suo muto case on the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital were streamed live on the Supreme Court’s YouTube channel.
What SC is doing?
LiveLaw in a report said the Supreme Court’s registry has taken note of the breach and is taking steps.
A report by the Indian Express quoted a senior SC official as saying that though he was not sure about what exactly happened, the website “appears to have been compromised”.
He further said that the top court’s IT team had taken it up with the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
With inputs from agencies
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