One of the biggest tech channels on YouTube … Linus Tech Tips with over 15 million subscribers got HACKED by crypto scammers.
Videos were deleted, all their other accounts were locked out. Luckily, Linus has got back ups … but still, imagine the hassle 😐
The Verge also did a story about this …
Popular YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips has been hacked this morning, with the channel’s 15.3 million subscribers seeing videos for crypto scams instead of tech hardware reviews. It’s the latest breach in a series of high-profile YouTube accounts being hacked, with scammers regularly gaining access to prominent accounts to rename them and livestream crypto scam videos.
The main Linus Tech Tips channel was breached earlier this morning, with several live videos broadcast before the hacker started making old private videos public. The account was eventually suspended, presumably as YouTube employees work to restore it. Other Linus Media Group YouTube channels, including Techquickie and TechLinked, have also been breached and given new names focused on Tesla.
It’s not immediately clear how the channels have been breached, but owner Linus Sebastian tweeted that he was aware of the situation. Later, in a statement posted to Floatplane (a streaming service spun out of Linus Media Group), he said that the company is working on it with Google, and is “getting to the bottom of the attack vector with the (hopeful) goal of hardening their security around YouTube accounts and preventing this sort of thing from happening to anyone in the future.” He also promised to discuss additional details on the company’s podcast, though warned they might not come this week as it’s “still a developing situation.
Here are some of the videos posted on YouTube about this.
Update: Linus Tech Tips is Back
