Linus Sebastian releases statement following Linus Media Group Hacks

Linus Sebastian responds to Linus Media Group YouTube account hacks

Update – Linus Media Group has regained control of their YouTube channels and has released a new video on the topic. Read more about it here.

 

Following the hacking to the Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel and the subsequent hacks of the Tech Quickie and TechLinked YouTube channels earlier today, Linus Sebastian, the owner and operator of Linus Media Group, has released the following statement on Floatplane regarding the attack. 

    Regarding the YouTube channel hack, we are now 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. 

Good news is that you can expect to get your LTT fix on Floatplane as usual. 

Today multiple YouTube channels from Linus Media Group were attacked by hackers who utilised the reach of of the organisation’s YouTube channels to promote a cryptocurrency scam, using the Tesla brand name and imagery of Elon Musk to direct viewers to a website where users could get scammed. 

These types of YouTube hacks and cryptocurrency scams are all too common on YouTube, with most of these scams using the concept of a crypto giveaway to entice victims into sending cryptocurrency to scammers. The scammers claim that users will be sent more money in return than they send to the scammers, a promise that is not kept. Our advice is to avoid any kind of crypto giveaway, and to keep an eye open for scammers on YouTube.

It looks like Linus Media Group and YouTube are on their way towards restoring the Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel and other affected channels. Hopefully, this hack will result in a hardening of YouTube’s security mechanisms and prevent similar hacks from occurring in the future. 

For the sake of Linus Media Group’s employees and Linus himself, we hope that these problems can be resolved quickly. We also hope that this hack will finally make YouTube wake up to the apparent security issues on their platform, as this has not been the first time that a high profile YouTuber has been targeted by this kind of hack.

You can join the discussion on Linus Media Group’s YouTube channel hacks on the OC3D Forums.