Over the last few months, many YouTubers have had their accounts taken over by hackers.
The hackers behind these attacks have been using increasingly complex techniques to gain control of the accounts such as asking YouTubers to review software that steals their credentials or cloning the YouTuber’s browser cookies which then allows the hackers to take over their channel without a password.
And now, Jeremy from TheQuartering is reporting that these types of YouTube hacks are still rife and that more than 30 channels were recently taken over by hackers.
Some of these hackers are changing the appearance of these channels to resemble the official channel of cryptocurrencies such as Binance, Ethereum, and Litecoin and then livestreaming a cryptocurrency scam which asks viewers to send them cryptocurrency in order to enter a non-existent cryptocurrency giveaway.
Unfortunately for those who have had their YouTube channels hacked, their only recourse is to keep letting YouTube know about the hacks and wait until it takes action and restores their channel access.
Jeremy is hoping that his video will make YouTube aware of the hacks and allow those who have been affected to regain access to their channels faster.
In addition to bringing attention to the affected channels through his video, Jeremy has also put together a spreadsheet that lists the affected channels (Google doc) along with their current status.
The channels collectively have more than six million subscribers and include TheAstonishingMinecraft, Casper/TheVerbion, and Joseph Anthony.
In his video about the situation, Jeremy recommends that YouTube put a manual check in place before YouTube or Adsense accounts are transferred to a new owner – a measure that he believes would prevent many of these hacks going forward.
Jeremy’s suggestion comes after several other YouTubers have asked YouTube to stop channels being transferred to another user without a password and two-factor authentication in response to previous hacks.
