On January 23rd, several hackers attempted a high-level scamming and hacking task on different popular crypto YouTuber accounts. These accounts posted some unauthorized videos that directed the viewers to send some money to the hackers’ wallets. Some of the YouTube accounts belonged to well-known names in the world of cryptocurrency.
The channels included Altcoin Buzz, Floyd Mayweather, BitBoy Crypto, The Moon, Ivan on Tech, Box Mining, and many others. The Binance Smart Chain wallet address was provided on the videos that were sent to the viewers and had about nine different transactions in BNB during the time of writing.
The total value went up to about $850 in total. Such an attempt to hack the accounts of the crypto YouTuber and succeed in scamming people off the money created a major controversy in the crypto world.
Michael Gu mentioned in his interview with Cointelegraph about his YouTube channel Boxmining that the channel went ahead and posted the video directing the viewers to send money without his permission. “Luckily, we caught it within two mins of the video going live and managed to delete it,” he added. “By that time, there were already views and comments from my community.” He also stated that he had done a proper sweep on the internal systems of the channel, and there were no other bugs or viruses that would raise any kind of suspicion.
The hackers couldn’t have easy access to his information and YouTube channel. So, this has also led to people believing that YouTube might be the one responsible for such action after he made the statement.
A post on Reddit made by a user suggested that the hackers might have successfully hacked the account using the method of SIM card swapping. Hence, they could properly bypass the 2FA or 2 Factor Authorization. “They are all posting with a title like “ONE WORLD CRYPTOCURRENCY.” They have an address in vid and description to send your USDT/USDC/BNB/ETH to receive new crypto called OWCY.” Said the user.
However, this failed to convince Gu, who wasn’t ready to accept that a simple SIM swapping trick would have hacked his account. He also mentioned that there weren’t any unusual logins on the personal Google Account. Gu mentioned, “If it was a SIM swap, I would lose access to my phone, etc., and that didn’t happen, ” This was one of the most controversial attempts at hacking, and it has got people thinking about the reliability of the YouTube platform.
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Hacking Attempt on Popular Crypto YouTube Accounts
CEO and Founder of the YouTube channel Altcoin Buzz, Shash Gupta, said, “What we noticed was on the BRAND account (which doesn’t have a login. YouTube brand accounts are connected to personal) there was a login from the Philippines. So very likely, this is either a hack on the YouTube site or a rogue employee. That’s how they got so many people at the same time.” He also added that they had noticed certain issues in the channel on Sunday night as they saw something was amiss about the channel at about 1 AM. “It’s pretty unclear what happened. I’m talking to Youtube to get to understand the matter and avoid such further breaches.”, he mentioned.
Another YouTube tweeted for cryptocurrency, Richard Heart, at about 9:30 PM UTC about banning his channel right in the middle of the Livestream that he was hosting. This statement indicated that YouTube might have been aware of the hacking attempt. However, YouTube has failed to address these issues and has made no comments about the hacking attempt or what was responsible for causing it in the first place.
