TL;DR Breakdown
- Several popular Youtubers found themselves victims in crypto scams attack on 23rd January late afternoon.
- Unauthorized videos were posted from the hacked accounts
Cryptocurrency is known for its fluctuating gyrations, breaking record highs one minute and dropping to stomach-churning lows the next. But the volatile nature of these digital coins has been luring investors’ flocks to the crypto space. Each is ambitious to try out their luck to become rich and successful. However, as the crypto fever continues to spread, the space becomes even more riddled with hackers and crypto scams. These entities work with a fraudulent ambition, lurking at every corner, waiting to cash in on any potential opportunity they are presented with. The victims tend to be bested by their naivety, especially if they are new to the world of cryptocurrency.
To aid themselves in their novice crypto journey, many turn towards the Youtube crypto community to help them stay afloat in the dangerous waters of the crypto sea. Be it investing decisions or updates on their favorite coin’s movements; these novices depend on them for their future crypto decisions. But as it turns out, anyone can fall prey to crypto scams, especially when not guided or careful. North Korean hackers recently stole about $400 million from global exchanges.
On Sunday, popular crypto Youtube channels were hijacked and used in promoting a crypto scam video.
Youtubers become latest target of Crypto scams
Unfortunately, in the late afternoon of 23 January, several popular YouTubers found themselves victims of hacking attacks. Some of the top channels that focused on crypto updates were revealed to be the victims used in promoting a crypto scam.
All the posted videos we titled ‘ONE WORLD CRYPTOCURRENCY.’ The video contained text detailing a Binance smart chain wallet address. In the description of the videos, it was stated that investors could send Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), Binance USD (BUSD), and BNB to address in return for a new token ‘OWCY.’
Impulsive and a few investors jumped at the opportunity without conducting adequate research and, as a result, fell victim to the hacker’s attack. The Binance Smart Chain wallet address that was mentioned in the video is reported to have only nine transactions totaling over 2.2 BNB so far as of writing. This amounts to a total of about $850.
The channel owners claimed that the video was posted without their knowledge and consent. They were completely unaware of what was going on. Youtube accounts that became targets of these hacks include ‘Altcoin Buzz,’ ‘BitBoy Crypto,’ ‘Box Mining,’ ‘The Moon,’ ‘Ivan on Tech,’ including ‘Floyd Mayweather,’ along with a few others.
Cointelegraph got in touch with one of the affected Youtubers, Micheal Gu, who runs the channel Boxmining with 268K subscribers. He stated that they were lucky enough to catch the video upload within two minutes of it being up and managed to delete it before it caused too much damage. While the video had already been viewed by several, its timely deletion was no doubt limited to damage caused by the hack.
Suspicions of insider job
Additionally, he said he had conducted an internal sweep and found no bugs or viruses whatsoever that might have created a hole in the security that may have resulted in unauthorized access. He further added that he uses two-factor authentication (2FA) for improved security access. He suspects Youtube may have something to do with this hack.
Another victim Youtuber of crypto scam, Ivan on tech, uploaded a new video responding to the incident. He said they are still looking for the hacker. He claims the hacker’s IP is in their possession and has an idea of who may have done this.
But he stated that he couldn’t help but wonder if the crypto scams were, in fact, a result of an inside job. “Big tech companies have their support staff in developing countries, so could it happen that somebody bribes Youtube staff? Absolutely,” He added.
One particular Reddit user commented on the incident suggesting the hackers may have used a SIM swap scam to access the accounts. This is because it allows scammers to bypass the 2FA protocol and escape detection.
Shashwat Gupta, the founder and CEO of the YouTube channel Altcoin Buzz, said they became suspicious of the activity as something unusual was occurring late Sunday night. This was right around the time the video was uploaded to their channel.
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