Linus Tech Tips explains how YouTube channel got hacked for crypto scam streams
Linus Tech Tips explains how YouTube channel got hacked for crypto scam streams
Linus "Linus Tech Tips" Sebastian, a popular
YouTuber, has described how his channels were hacked and erased without the
hackers gaining access to his credentials.
Fans of Linus Tech Tips, the most popular PC content
channel, were horrified to discover that three channels' worth of content had
vanished and been replaced by cryptocurrency scam streams on March 23.
It was astonishing that Linus, whose work is all about
understanding the ins and outs of technology, had been the target of one of
these attacks, even though they are nothing new and have frequently appeared on
YouTube and Twitch.
Linus Tech Tips explains how his YouTube channel got hacked
The YouTuber has explained what transpired, including the
fact that he had to rise early to resolve matters, after successfully putting
out fires and regaining control of his channels. The Canadian tech supremo revealed that it wasn’t like
someone targeted their password directly to get into his account, but, instead,
they went after their whole browser profile, which made it even more difficult
to combat. “Someone on our team downloaded what appeared to be a
sponsorship offer from a potential partner. It was an innocent enough mistake
for the most part. The email came from a legitimate-looking source and it
didn’t raise any immediate red flags,” Linus said, noting that whatever ‘PDF’
was downloading, didn’t launch as it should have and was thus ignored. It took around 30 seconds for the background activity to
occur. All user data, including locally saved passwords, cookies, and browser
preferences were obtained by the malware from both of the installed browsers,
Chrome and Edge. essentially providing them with an exact clone of those
browsers on the target machine that they could export, along with, you guessed
it, session tokens for each website that was currently logged in. It took longer than it should have to fix problems because
of how roles are distributed for his channels, he said, adding that the hack
could have been "easily averted" if the team had stronger systems in
place. In conclusion, he said, "Google has to improve
communication and security options around these concerns because I realized at
three something in the morning that I didn't know how to reset the passwords
and the access controls across various channels." He then urged Google to
do so. Expect the regular videos soon now that everything is back
to normal on the three hacked channels.