One of the largest tech YouTube creators, Linus Media Group (LMG), has been hit by a series of security breaches, with hackers gaining control of their channels to promote cryptocurrency scams.
The Linus Tech Tips YouTube account, which has over 15 million subscribers, was hacked, with most of the channel’s videos being taken down and used to live stream videos of Elon Musk talking about cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, other LMG channels, including Techquickie and TechLinked, had been breached and renamed with a focus on the automaker Tesla.
Linus Tech Tips and its associated channels focus on examining computer hardware upgrades, gaming, and even dabbled in the odd car review. But for the time being, the channel is down as YouTube employees presumably scramble to restore the content.
Related: Elon Musk Overruled Tesla Engineers Who Knew Removing Radar Was A Bad Idea
YouTube and Google appear to have been battling against such bad actors for a while, with multiple channels being hacked to promote misleading scams to millions of users. Over the past few months, several other users have seen their accounts being used for such malicious intent, including the British Army’s official account and even music artists such as Taylor Swift and Drake.
The videos streamed on the Linus Tech Tips channel featured Elon Musk discussing cryptocurrency with Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter. It appears two identical streams were broadcast, with a malicious “Crypto Giveaway” offer promised, which would likely have been a phishing attempt for crypto wallet details. An account that was renamed “Tesla” used the promise of Elon Musk, proclaiming that Ethereum and Bitcoin were set to explode in 2023.
It’s uncertain how the YouTuber’s channels were breached, but according to The Verge, one way in which accounts have been breached in the past is for fake sponsors to reach out and convince a user to download malware in the guise of a sponsorship-related file.
It’s unclear when the LMG channels will be back online.
TechLinked now hacked as well.
— Daniel (@ZONEofTECH) March 23, 2023
Seems like it’s all their channels. pic.twitter.com/lLa4qbOPqX