With more than 15 million subscribers on the site, Linus Tech Tips is one of the most well-liked YouTube content producers for tech gear. That soon changed when cryptocurrency fraudsters gained access to the account and started running Bitcoin advertisements through it. The mistake screen on each LTT video states that the account has now been “terminated.”
The Verge claims that the intruder gained entry to Linus Sebastian’s account early this morning. They aired several times in real time about Bitcoin and Elon Musk. Although it is unclear whether this was done by YouTube employees or the fraudster themselves, some private videos on the channel were made public.
The account was ultimately removed, but it’s unclear whether YouTube employees or the hacker themselves carried out the operation. Techquicke and TechLinked, two other tech accounts owned by the Linus media group, were also compromised. Kotaku contacted YouTube to inquire about whether the account had been delisted and what safety precautions they offer producers to protect their accounts but had not heard back as of the time of publishing.
Fans of LTT have observed that nearly ten years’ worth of recordings were removed. Sebastian is a proponent of the 3-2-1 technique of saving data across multiple storage devices and has used the “Vault” backup system to back up his old recordings. (including one offsite). Sebastian was contacted by Kotaku for a response, but none had been given by the time of publishing.
Crypto frauds on YouTube are not a recent occurrence. The British Army’s account was compromised last year, and it was used as a bitcoin advertising tool. Some con artists who lack the know-how to infiltrate popular YouTube accounts have turned to imitation, like this Tesla-fake account. It seems that the bitcoin environment is full of shills who don’t have the skills or reputation to build their own audiences and instead rely on capitalizing on other people’s hard work and exposure.
Sebastian appears to be laughing it off, urging his followers to watch ShortCircuit, a Linus Media Group account that wasn’t compromised by a cryptocurrency thief.
For high-profile accounts, I’d like to see YouTube adopt a lockdown mode where, for a while, you can’t rename a channel, access live-streaming options, or delete videos if you sign in from an unidentified browser or location (based on IP and other variables). This could aid channel owners in regaining control of their YouTube accounts before any serious harm is done, especially when combined with notifications when a new place has logged in.
In order to rename a channel or delete videos, you would need a second permission from another account. YouTube may even adopt extra two-factor prompts for channel activities. Additionally, this might lessen the effects of a YouTuber’s own computer being compromised. I hope YouTube can come up with some even better solutions and get this under control because I’m tired of waking up to alerts on my phone about useless bitcoin videos.
