Kuaishou reports cyberattack as explicit content flood livestreams

Short-video platform Kuaishou was hit by a wave of sexually explicit livestreams that temporarily overwhelmed its content moderation systems on Monday evening, the company said.

The incident has heightened concerns about hackers using advanced techniques to mass-register accounts and spread illegal content.

Kuaishou confirmed early Tuesday that the platform had been maliciously targeted by cybercriminal groups starting around 10 pm the previous night.

The company said that emergency measures have been implemented to address the situation, reaffirming its firm stance against policy-violating content. The incident has been reported to relevant regulators and public security authorities, it said.

In a social media post, security expert Wang Liejun said that the cybercriminal industry has entered an era of "automated attacks", while many platforms still rely heavily on manual moderation.

He said that hackers now use automated tools to batch-register and control large numbers of "zombie accounts", allowing illegal content to spread almost instantaneously — a scale that far exceeds the timely response capacity of human moderators.

Wang also noted that recent incidents involve insider data leaks, stolen internal accounts, or unauthorized operations.

In some cases, hackers have even bribed employees, underscoring the need for platforms to strengthen internal controls and access management to prevent insider threats.