Digital advertising billboards in several countries have been hit by a coordinated cyberattack, with explicit videos appearing in place of normal content, the website infohub.kz reports.
The incidents, in which adult material was displayed, were recorded on screens along busy roads in Egypt, Brazil and Malaysia. The attackers claim they also gained access to billboards in Iraq and China.
In Cairo, the banned footage appeared on a major highway along with a link to a Telegram channel, prompting drivers to pull over and film the scene on their phones. In the Brazilian city of Campo Maior, outdoor advertising operator Ferreira & Ferreira Publicidade e Comunicação was forced to cut power to the panel urgently, apologize to residents and file a report with police.
The hacking group LeakersGov has claimed responsibility for the breach. The hackers themselves said the operation was rudimentary and that anyone could have carried it out.
According to them, they did not attack the physical screens themselves but exploited a vulnerability in the software of an international platform that companies use to send content to LED panels.
The hackers noted that the press often exaggerates the complexity of such attacks and attributes them to state agencies, when the real cause is simple carelessness on the part of operators. Experts have long warned advertising agencies about the danger of using default factory passwords on control equipment, yet companies continue to neglect basic cybersecurity rules.