Music videos altered by hackers at Vevo

The hackers replaced the song's thumbnail with an image of a masked gang with guns from Netflix's serial La Casa de Papel, Buzzfeed reported. All the videos have since returned to the site, Pitchfork reports.

As per the publication, a number of other popular videos on YouTube were also similarly defaced.

A hacker using the online moniker of Kuroi'SH claimed responsibility for the breach in a series of tweets, revealing that he also hacked rapper Post Malone, and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki.

Adele's Hello song title read, "x - Hacked by Prosox & Kuroi'SH greats: 18-25 from JVC". "We are continuing to investigate the source of the breach", it said in a statement.

With over 5 billion views "Despacito" is now the most viewed YouTube video of all time, and news of the hacking may add on another million views by days end.

The titles of the videos mentioned above have been restored at the time of writing but the "Despacito" music video continues to be removed from YouTube. In the video description it was written "Free Palestine".

Numerous videos targeted in the original attack have been re-uploaded to YouTube at this time - including "Despacito".

"Don't judge me I love YouTube", it added.

Surrey University cyber-security expert Alan Woodward told the BBC News that it probably took more work to gain access.

He said, "to upload and alter video content with a code you should require an authorization token". It is still not clear if individual accounts were compromised or was it a major hack that has used some kind of vulnerability on YouTube.