Powered by

Get Hosting
Linus Tech Tips gets hit hard by large scale hacking of the channel

Linus Tech Tips gets hit hard by large scale hacking of the channel

One of the biggest channels on YouTube looks to have been hacked, continuing an ongoing problem with account breaches. The most recent target of these attacks was LinusTechTips, which is renowned for its easily accessible PC hardware content. The handle “@temporaryhandle” has been changed to “LinusTechTipsTemp” for the channel. The majority of the channel’s videos have also been destroyed, though they are progressively being recovered. Two videos with Elon Musk and the original inventor of Twitter discussing cryptocurrencies were broadcast on the breached channel. One is titled “LinusTechTips & Elon Musk Special Crypto Giveaway,” and the other is “OpenAI ChatGPT-4: The Game-Changing AI Technology.” After airing for about 20 minutes, the latter stream was shut down. After around 35 minutes of streaming, the initial stream stopped working. They have both since gone live again, though, in what seems to be a conflict between YouTube and the malevolent actors.

However, it appears as though the identical film is being shown on both livestreams. Nevertheless, there is a link to a supposedly harmful “Crypto Giveaway” in the discussion. This appears to be a phishing effort to obtain the password of a viewer’s cryptocurrency wallet. While malicious actors may have already deleted the majority of LinusTechTips videos, accounts have previously been breached with videos deleted and had their accounts restored after the account owner had recovered them. It looks that YouTube itself is already working on restoring the previously deleted videos.

The re-uploaded videos also appear to contain videos with changed titles that were previously unlisted. Even the titles of some videos expressly state “Do not upload” or “Do not use.” This has been a persistent issue for YouTube because another tech channel, Eteknix, was also hacked a few weeks ago but appears to have had their accounts restored along with all of their videos. Uncertainty surrounds how the hackers were able to access the Linus Tech Tips account, but this incident emphasizes the value of security on all accounts.

Following the breach, the Linus Tech Tips account has now been closed. A few hours after the hack, Linus posted on their website “Floatplane” to confirm that they were aware of the problem and coordinating with Google to fix it. We are currently on top of the YouTube channel hack with Google’s team, Linus said. “Everything should be locked down, and we’re trying to figure out the attack vector with the (hopeful) goal of hardening their security around YouTube accounts and making sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else in the future,” said the spokesperson.

Linus Tech Tips gets hit hard by large scale hacking of the channel

Linus Tech Tips gets hit hard by large scale hacking of the channel

One of the biggest channels on YouTube looks to have been hacked, continuing an ongoing problem with account breaches. The most recent target of these attacks was LinusTechTips, which is renowned for its easily accessible PC hardware content. The handle “@temporaryhandle” has been changed to “LinusTechTipsTemp” for the channel. The majority of the channel’s videos have also been destroyed, though they are progressively being recovered. Two videos with Elon Musk and the original inventor of Twitter discussing cryptocurrencies were broadcast on the breached channel. One is titled “LinusTechTips & Elon Musk Special Crypto Giveaway,” and the other is “OpenAI ChatGPT-4: The Game-Changing AI Technology.” After airing for about 20 minutes, the latter stream was shut down. After around 35 minutes of streaming, the initial stream stopped working. They have both since gone live again, though, in what seems to be a conflict between YouTube and the malevolent actors.

However, it appears as though the identical film is being shown on both livestreams. Nevertheless, there is a link to a supposedly harmful “Crypto Giveaway” in the discussion. This appears to be a phishing effort to obtain the password of a viewer’s cryptocurrency wallet. While malicious actors may have already deleted the majority of LinusTechTips videos, accounts have previously been breached with videos deleted and had their accounts restored after the account owner had recovered them. It looks that YouTube itself is already working on restoring the previously deleted videos.

The re-uploaded videos also appear to contain videos with changed titles that were previously unlisted. Even the titles of some videos expressly state “Do not upload” or “Do not use.” This has been a persistent issue for YouTube because another tech channel, Eteknix, was also hacked a few weeks ago but appears to have had their accounts restored along with all of their videos. Uncertainty surrounds how the hackers were able to access the Linus Tech Tips account, but this incident emphasizes the value of security on all accounts.

Following the breach, the Linus Tech Tips account has now been closed. A few hours after the hack, Linus posted on their website “Floatplane” to confirm that they were aware of the problem and coordinating with Google to fix it. We are currently on top of the YouTube channel hack with Google’s team, Linus said. “Everything should be locked down, and we’re trying to figure out the attack vector with the (hopeful) goal of hardening their security around YouTube accounts and making sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else in the future,” said the spokesperson.