Sesame Street’s YouTube channel hacked, replaced with porn

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
@
@[email protected]
@gcluley

Sesame Street had its YouTube channel hacked on Sunday, and its highly popular child-friendly videos of muppets like Kermit the frog and the Big Bird replaced with something far less savoury: Hard core porn movies.

X-rated Sesame Street

What would Bert and Ernie say? The truth of the matter is that the channel is regularly visited by young children, and parents trust that the page will be safe for them to view.

The NSFW content was available for all the world to see for approximately 20 minutes, before the channel was suspended for “repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines.”

You have to wonder what was going through the mind of whoever hacked Sesame Street’s YouTube page.

Aside from uploading pornographic videos, the hackers also changed the Sesame Street’s channel profile on YouTube:

Sesame Street hacked profile

WHO DOESN'T LOVE PORN KIDS? RIGHT! EVERYONE LOVES IT! IM MREDXWX AND MY PARTNER MRSUICIDER91 ARE HERE TO BRING YOU MANY NICE CONTENT! PLEASE DON'T LET SESAME STREET TO GET THIS ACCOUNT BACK KIDS :( PLEASE...LET ME AND MRSUICIDER91 HAVE IT AND WE GONNA MAKE ALL THE AMERICA HAPPY!

Now, if it really was YouTube user “MrEdxwx” who hacked the Sesame Street account you would have to suggest he go back to his first day at school, because it would be remarkably silly to leave a message telling the world that he was the perpetrator.

“MrEdxwx” is clearly feeling the heat, however, as he has decided to upload a video denying any involvement in the hack.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI_shvGPBNM&w=500&rel=0]

Precisely how Sesame Street’s YouTube channel got hacked is presently a mystery – but it’s natural to assume that they were sloppy with their password security.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter, Mastodon, or Threads to read more of the exclusive content we post.


Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

What do you think? Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.