With platform providers such as Google and AOL encouraging brands to step up their online video outreach to consumers via original content, and via, of course, their new platforms, security is becoming a bigger headache.

Easy Prey

Online video has become easy prey for pranksters and malware writers. While the former is not likely to lead to any monetary loss on the part of viewers, it can severely hurt a brand's image. The latest example is Sesame Street, whose YouTube channel was recently hacked, NextWeb reports. All the videos were deleted and graphic porn uploaded. It took Google around 22 minutes to take down the content and close the channel. Afterwards, search results for Sesame Street on YouTube still revealed the occasional graphic thumbnail, NW said, adding that "it is awful that kids as young as five may have seen the videos. Kudos to Google for responding swiftly."

Justin Bieber Too

Teen idol Justin Bieber experienced a similar event on his YouTube channel. Viewers to his site were redirected to porn. Viewers also saw a message that said Bieber died in a car crash.  In this episode the hackers were able to take advantage of a cross-site scripting vulnerability on YouTube to insert JavaScript and HTML code into the comments section, according to InformationWeek.

Consumers Continue Love Affair with Online Video

Such events are bound to proliferate — and not just because platform providers such as Google are stepping up efforts to monetize these sites. Americans are simply in love with online video as recent figures from comScore Media Metrix show. Americans logged about 6.9 billion online video viewing sessions in August, roughly tying the all-time record set in July and an increase of about 33% from 5.7 billion in August 2010. On a year-over-year basis, unique online video viewership grew about 1.5%, from 177 million.