What just happened? Linus Tech Tips, one of the largest and most popular technology YouTube channels on the platform, has been hacked. It was used by the hackers to show pre-recorded 'live-streaming' crypto-scam videos, featuring former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The channel is now showing a message stating it has been shut down for violating YouTube's community guidelines, but it appears Linus' other channels are also being abused.
Linus Sebastian's Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel has been running since 2008 and has amassed 15.8 million subscribers. The Canadian has several channels under the Linus Media Group banner, including TechLinked, but the main one remains the most popular. Sadly for all involved, it's become the latest high-profile channel to be hacked.
[...]
YouTube has shuttered the channel for violating its guidelines, but it seems the hackers have now gone after other Linus Media Group accounts. TechLinked has been renamed Tesla and is showing the same Musk livestream.
[...]
While all the content from the channels has been deleted, Linus previously created several videos showing off the high-end hardware used to store the terabytes of backups the company created over the years.
[UPDATE: After taking back control of the channels, he released a video explaining how it all went down by way of a little bit of social engineering resulting in the attacker gaining their browser session token --hubie]
Also:
Linus Tech Tips YouTube Channel Hacked to Promote Crypto Scams
Linus Tech Tips YouTube Channel Is Down After Crypto Scammer Hack
VERGE STUPIDLY MAKES THEIR TITLES IMAGES NOW (Though, it could just be the one article. This is also an article on the Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel hack.)
Related:
Live Show on Improving Your Security -- Wednesday June 3rd, 2020 (NCommander - 2020)
Security Warning For 23 Million YouTube Creators Following 'Massive' Hack Attack (2019)
Related Stories
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow2718
Security Warning For 23 Million YouTube Creators Following 'Massive' Hack Attack
High-profile YouTubers have been targeted by cybercriminals over the weekend in what appears to have been a highly coordinated and "massive" attack. The security warning was made by Catalin Cimpanu, a ZDNet reporter, who spoke to a member of an internet forum with a history of trading access to hacked accounts. Here's what we know so far and what you need to do to protect your own YouTube account.
According to the ZDNet investigation, many accounts belonging to well-known YouTubers within the car community appear to have been hijacked. However, it would also appear the attack itself has been directed mostly towards "influencers" across many YouTube channel genres. Amongst those taking to Twitter to complain about their YouTube accounts being hacked and access to their channels lost, were YouTubers covering technology, music, gaming and Disney. With more than 23 million YouTube channels, anyone who creates content should be heeding this warning though.
[Speaking as the de-facto leader of SoylentNews, I know this community is very sensitive to self-promotional "Slashvertising" and similar. Since our inception, we've prided ourselves on listening to our community and taking those views into account. I've walked a bit of a fine line with that with my original content articles both recently and in the past. I do not want to be a rule unto myself so if this post ends up crossing that line, mention it in the comments and we'll take those lessons to heart. Also, we haven't had a community roundtable here at SN in quite a long time, so I'm going to schedule one go to live on Monday.]
[NB: Yes, "original content" articles are welcome here. If anyone is considering it, please try to keep them tech-related and provide supporting links. Also provide contact info (email address) so any issues or questions can be discussed as needed. --martyb]
The simple fact is that in the last few weeks, the world, especially in the United States has become a very different place. Here in New York City, there's been constant protests and escalation between the police and protesters. In an era where drones are being used to track and monitor protesters, digital security is more important more than ever. I want to do my bit on trying to help people keep themselves safe and secure in these times.
Normally, I try not to push self-promotion here, and I've made sure that my recent original content articles are not pushing that line. I mentioned in my last article that I host a weekly hacking show called HACK-ALT-NCOMMANDER, as part of DEFCON 201, the local DEF CON group for the New Jersey area. Usually, I cover some bit of retro-tech, random reverse engineering, and other random and strange things. Not today.
This time, I've decided to cover these topics:
- email security
- a quick primer on GnuPG and S/MIME
- understanding Tor
- basic OPSEC (using Windows as a base)
I'll also be fielding questions in real-time. If you're interested, please tune in at 8PM Eastern Daylight Time (24:00 UTC) to the DEFCON 201 video streams (see links below). I may also cover aspects of securing systems for IT administrators depending on how chat directs me.
73 de NCommander, hoping that you're all safe
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2023, @01:40AM
If everything seems OK, go handle the other youtube managers. They might have malware installed that keeps getting the tokens/credentials.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday March 28 2023, @02:47AM (3 children)
Linus' business is big. He employs a lot of people. And all that is 100% dependent on Google.
Here look: one employee opens one measly PDF, allowing an attacker to exploit a simple session token exploit, and *poof*, the man's company's ONLY livelihood was gone.
I mean sure, Google got his back and all (and just his back I might add, as smaller channels probably aren't treated with the same speed and efficiency by the Youtube staff) but essentially that's what happened.
In his video, he rambles on about how Google should implement this and that measure so it doesn't happen again. But all I see is a man with ALL his eggs in one single backet pleading the backet to protect his eggs better. I'd be scared if I were him. And I'd be even more scared if I had a smaller channel than Linus' and it was my only source of income.
I'd diversity asap if I were Linus.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Tuesday March 28 2023, @03:14AM
Umm, I think he owns and operates his own video distribution platform/YouTube competitor.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 28 2023, @03:25AM
(Score: 5, Informative) by EJ on Tuesday March 28 2023, @04:57AM
https://www.floatplane.com/ [floatplane.com]
https://twitter.com/floatplanemedia [twitter.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nuke on Tuesday March 28 2023, @10:40AM (3 children)
I don't understand. A video of Musk promoting a crypto scheme? Wouldn't that put people off it, or am I out of touch with the mass of humanity?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2023, @03:38PM
For similar reasons some scammers prefer to target old people.
The other explanation is the scammers got scammed themselves... 😉
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday March 28 2023, @04:58PM
The mass of humanity sees a very successful business man who outright owns 3 major corporations, SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter. (I know, Twitter is "awful" / "in dire straits", etc.) The average person just sees a dude with lots of money doing business things.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday March 28 2023, @08:32PM
It's not targeting you, but the pathologically gullible. From the explanation video, the Musk podcast links to scam sites where they're promising 2 bitcoins for every bitcoin you give them (sounds like it might have been spun as a Elon Musk gifting bitcoins for your investment interest). I last saw that sort of scam in internet space ship game, Eve Online which has those going on 24 hours a day in the primary trade center, a star system called "Jita" - no exaggeration whatsoever. When I was in that system, I would check the system-scope chat (termed "local chat") for the latest scams. There would always be a 2 for 1 scam going, sometimes several at once 100% of the time. I think they had chatbots running those things.
So anyway, I'm not surprised that what worked in Eve Online, works in the real world for cryptocurrencies.