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guidelines, the Linus Tech Tips channel re-uploaded many older videos, including some that had been marked as "do not publish."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: 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.
80 Comments on Linus Media Group YouTube Channels Hacked
Crypto is a good first try.
Shame it's in shambles thanks to aholes like those from FTX and the idiotic move to proof of stake of etherium.
Inflation destroyed about 1/5 of our savings in the western world
wtaf criminals do crime not Blockchains.
I like Ltt occasionally they're both entertaining and enlightening I hope they fix this and perhaps get a bit more serious on the server admin front.
Nobody hacks anybody anymore that's only in the movies.
People just give out their personal information and passwords.
Linus will probably have his channel back before the end of the week.
I'm pretty sure linus got his traffic for his youtube site from another highly popular techforum website a long time in the first place.
To me this just seem like well. What comes around, goes around.
Those are of the top of my head and there are countries with worse inflation
Someone from that country keeping part of their savings in bitcoin would have left them with far more than just the scraps that would be left had they not converted it
The only reason people use crypto in the 3rd world is for cheaper remittance costs.
And you clearly know nothing of his wares and effort so why bother throwing your 10c in.
The owner of NCIX basically ran the company into the ground and a lot of staff got let go of. Im not sure if Linus was let go of or resigned (I think he resigned) but he ended up leaving the company and starting up a YT channel as a placeholder so people would know where to find him.
NCIX carried on being driven into the ground by its owner and Linus approached him to see if he could buy out the brand name or the company since the owner didnt seem to care anyway and linus had long been considered the face of NCIX with all the videos he did for the business. Owner wasnt interested in selling up so NCIX went bankrupt and Linus started up what became Linus Media Group and eventually Floatplane with a lot of ex-NCIX staff
I think Linus offered to buy the company off the owner at least on two or three separate occasions to save it from bankruptcy.
One thing that Linus did talk about in his video addressing his history at NCIX was that the owner maybe didnt seem to understand the social media side of the business and certain service related things like offering same day delivery if you were located within 5miles of a branch of NCIX that their competitors were offering.
They would hire their own staff to deliver stuff to your door if you couldn't wait for the regular delivery service.... Linus did push the idea across to the owner but owner wasnt interested in doing anything. Nothing was done and this is how they started losing a lot of business and eventually bankrupt.
The original owner either wanted to get out of the business completely or it maybe it was more of a tax write off for him if the business went down completely. I never understood why he didnt sell to Linus.
I understand that people might not like Linus but there are worse people out there that deserve that ire more than a guy who doesnt look or sound over 15 talking tech to you and constantly dropping $1000-3000 pieces of hardware on the floor and off desks.
Edited to add more context and easier reading
It's smart to communicate to stakeholders, and especially ones like their Floatplane patrons. But given the nature of the business must be supported by its millions of subscribers on the various garden variety YouTube channels, and is also thus a big name in the tech media scene by that metric alone, communicating with all its publics in as an accessible way/or ways as practicable, is key.
It could easily post a statement on its website (yes, there is one) and point media there to disseminate it via their respective media channels to wider stakeholders. And, of course, a media release is a given. LMG doesn't even need to say much. It just needs to say something to more than a limited group.
Edit add: Sorry, this is all to say the organization should have had a ready made plan on the shelf. It makes one wonder.
I'll leave it at that for now as a surface look without knowing much for a close read of what happened and what else happens from a PR view.
Some stats I found:
- 2015: 1.2 million subscribers
- 2016: 2.2 million
- 2017: 3.5 million
- 2018: 5 million
- 2019: 8 million
- 2020: 10 million
- 2022: 15 million
I tried to Google his approximate net worth and found that he recently alluded to a valuation in excess of $ 100 million. All I found was "nine figures" - anyone know anything more than that? Anyway, worst case scenario that's $ 100 million.Show me a "highly popular tech forum" that can get you that sort of viewership?
Would I like him as a friend? I don't know. I kinda doubt it, but that's based on his online persona.
Would I like him as a business partner? Absolutely yes.