Kuaishou Hit by Major Cyberattack, Livestreaming Forced Offline for Hours
The coordinated attack triggered a surge of illicit livestreams, disrupted services for hours, and wiped more than HK$16 billion from Kuaishou’s market value.
Kuaishou (1024.HK), one of China’s major short-video and livestreaming platforms, experienced a large-scale coordinated cyberattack on the evening of December 22, 2025. The attack triggered a surge of illicit livestreaming content across the platform. Kuaishou immediately activated its highest-level emergency protocol and implemented a “blanket shutdown” of livestreaming services. Livestreaming gradually recovered in the early hours of December 23. The incident also had an immediate impact on the capital market: as of press time, Kuaishou’s share price had fallen 3.37%, with an intraday drop of up to 5.70%, wiping roughly HK$16.4 billion off its market value.
Attack Timeline and Emergency Response
Monitoring data from the platform shows clear phases in the attack(all times in Beijing Time):
18:00 – Users began reporting livestream abnormalities.
22:00–23:30 – Attack peaked, with explicit livestreams surging and multiple rooms exceeding ten thousand viewers.
00:15, Dec 23 – Kuaishou activated its highest emergency response, forcibly shutting down livestreaming and banning implicated accounts.
Early morning, Dec 23 – Livestreaming services were gradually restored; other services remained unaffected.
After detecting abnormal traffic patterns, Kuaishou’s security team immediately initiated a circuit-breaker mechanism to halt all livestreaming and contain the spread of illicit content. The platform issued batch bans on malicious accounts, filed a police report, and notified relevant regulators.
Experts Analyse Attack Techniques
Multiple cybersecurity specialists classified the incident as a P0-level, top-severity security breach. A senior expert at 360 Digital Security Group noted that attackers likely exploited vulnerabilities in the underlying livestreaming transmission interface, allowing them to bypass real-name authentication and content moderation systems.
A principal security analyst at AsiaInfo Security highlighted a new business-layer adversarial strategy, where attackers avoided direct confrontation with firewalls and instead operated in the grey zones of business logic. By launching large-scale livestreams that appeared compliant on the surface but violated content rules, attackers overwhelmed traditional rule-based filtering models.
Automation Behind the Attack
An expert at DAS-Security noted that the attackers employed highly mature automated tooling, allowing cybercrime groups to control large fleets of bot accounts and manufacture fake engagement. This “instantaneous flash-flood” pattern reflected a high degree of organisational coordination.
Wang Liejun, a chief expert at QAX, stated that the incident signals the industry’s transition into the era of automated cyberattacks. Attackers leveraged automated tools for mass account registration and second-level dissemination of illicit content—far exceeding the processing capacity of manual review systems when confronted with dozens of violations per second.
Market Reaction and Platform Reinforcement Measures
Financial markets reacted sharply. On December 23, Kuaishou opened at HK$64.5, down 3.30% from the previous close of HK$66.7. Shares dipped to an intraday low of HK$62.7, marking a 5.70% decline and roughly HK$16.4 billion in evaporated market value—reflecting investor concerns over the platform’s security resilience.
In a follow-up statement, Kuaishou emphasised its commitment to strict compliance and reiterated its zero-tolerance stance toward illicit content. The company announced comprehensive upgrades to its security infrastructure, including enhanced real-time monitoring, improved review algorithms, and strengthened elastic-defence mechanisms.
Industry Warning and Outlook
Industry experts say the incident serves as a wake-up call for the entire content-security ecosystem. A senior strategist at AsiaInfo Security emphasised that future defence priorities must shift from single-point vulnerability fixes to building elastic systems capable of withstanding extreme-scale shocks.
Kuaishou stated it will continue to increase investment in security technologies, with a focus on proactive threat detection and dynamic response capabilities. The company plans to deepen collaboration with industry partners to build a more resilient content-governance ecosystem.
While the attack delivered a short-term blow to the platform, it has also heightened industry-wide awareness of emerging security threats—likely accelerating the development and deployment of next-generation defence technologies.
