Thursday, March 23rd 2023
Linus Media Group YouTube Channels Hacked
The popular tech YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips, along with its associated YouTube channel Techquickie, has been hijacked by crypto scammers. Techquickie has been renamed to "Tesla" and is currently running a crypto scam livestream of a deepfaked Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey and two others. Needless to say, please do not fall for this and prevent your friends and family from doing the same.
Prior to being terminated—likely temporarily, given Linus Media Group is a YouTube partner with a solution on the way no doubt—for being automatically flagged as a result of violating YouTube community guidelines, the Linus Tech Tips channel re-uploaded many older videos, including some that had been marked as "do not publish." It is unclear to what extent Linus Sebastian and other members of LMG are currently aware of this crisis, but as of yet, no updates or statements have been made from the personal account of Linus or the main Linus Tech Tips Twitter account. The most recent Linus Tech Tips tweet is 13 hours old. This post will be updated as more details become available.
Update: The Techquickie channel and its deepfake crypto scam stream has been made unavailable by Google/YouTube.
Update #2: The Techlinked channel, which was also running a deepfake crypto scam stream, has been terminated for violating YouTube Community Guidelines. Linus is aware of the situation and has published a statement on Floatplane:
"Regarding the YouTube channel hack, we are on top of it with Google's team now. Everything should be locked down and we are 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.
You can expect a more detailed update on WAN Show at some point in the future. Not sure if it'll happen this week since this is still a developing situation.
The good news is that you can expect to get your LTT fix on Floatplane as usual - Linus"
Update #3: Linus Media Group YouTube channels have been restored, after just one day of losing control to crypto scammers via session cookie hijacking. Linus Tech Tips has released a video outlining the events of the last day.
Prior to being terminated—likely temporarily, given Linus Media Group is a YouTube partner with a solution on the way no doubt—for being automatically flagged as a result of violating YouTube community guidelines, the Linus Tech Tips channel re-uploaded many older videos, including some that had been marked as "do not publish." It is unclear to what extent Linus Sebastian and other members of LMG are currently aware of this crisis, but as of yet, no updates or statements have been made from the personal account of Linus or the main Linus Tech Tips Twitter account. The most recent Linus Tech Tips tweet is 13 hours old. This post will be updated as more details become available.
Update #2: The Techlinked channel, which was also running a deepfake crypto scam stream, has been terminated for violating YouTube Community Guidelines. Linus is aware of the situation and has published a statement on Floatplane:
"Regarding the YouTube channel hack, we are on top of it with Google's team now. Everything should be locked down and we are 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.
You can expect a more detailed update on WAN Show at some point in the future. Not sure if it'll happen this week since this is still a developing situation.
The good news is that you can expect to get your LTT fix on Floatplane as usual - Linus"
Update #3: Linus Media Group YouTube channels have been restored, after just one day of losing control to crypto scammers via session cookie hijacking. Linus Tech Tips has released a video outlining the events of the last day.
80 Comments on Linus Media Group YouTube Channels Hacked
Not like tossing something on the floor on purpose. :D
They did talk on their podcast recently about how they're trying to move password managers, but I don't think it's related.
I do hope and expect for them to reveal details once it's settled.
They might have to upload the whole thing once again.
Not enough drama to be real so it's not fooling anyone but never know what types actually stalk ltt's content so they would probably believe anything put out there :laugh:
Yeah never a good thing to use abc123 as a password ltt and staff :slap:
@R-T-B You know?