SoylentNews

YouTube Channel Linus Tech Tips Terminated After It Was Hacked to Show Crypto-Scam Videos

posted by hubie on Tuesday March 28 2023, @12:01AM   
from the PEBKAC dept.

Freeman writes:

https://www.techspot.com/news/98047-youtube-channel-linustechtips-terminated-after-hacked-show-crypto.html

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)

---

Original Submission

• I'd be worriedI'd be worried (Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday March 28 2023, @02:47AM (3 children)

  by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Tuesday March 28 2023, @02:47AM (#1298437)

  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.

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+4
  Insightful=3, Interesting=1, Disagree=1, Total=5
  Extra 'Insightful' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		5

• Re:I'd be worried(Score: 4, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Tuesday March 28 2023, @03:14AM

  by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday March 28 2023, @03:14AM (#1298438)

  Umm, I think he owns and operates his own video distribution platform/YouTube competitor.

  Parent

• Re:I'd be worried(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 28 2023, @03:25AM

  by khallow (3766) on Tuesday March 28 2023, @03:25AM (#1298439) Journal

  Hmmm, a couple months back I mentioned a podcast [fallofcivilizationspodcast.com] called "Fall of Civilizations". They publish the podcasts on six media channels (iTunes, two SoundCloud channels including an RSS feed, Stitcher, Spotify, and of course, YouTube). So that right there is a demonstration that diversification is not only possible, but that there's a bunch of competitors available. I don't know how they'd work with Linus's business model though.

  Parent

• Re:I'd be worried(Score: 5, Informative) by EJ on Tuesday March 28 2023, @04:57AM

  by EJ (2452) on Tuesday March 28 2023, @04:57AM (#1298443)

  https://www.floatplane.com/ [floatplane.com]

  https://twitter.com/floatplanemedia [twitter.com]

  Parent