Sesame Street’s YouTube channel hacked, replaced with porn

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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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.”

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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.


Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and is the co-host of the popular "Smashing Security" podcast. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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