Fake Bitcoin giveaway linked to popular Apple analyst appears on YouTube

Popular tech blogger Jon Prosser became a victim of hackers who took over his YouTube account. On the channel renamed to ‘NASA’ with 262,000 subscribers, a scam Bitcoin giveaway began.

Prosser noted that the hackers managed to bypass two-factor authentication. The platform’s algorithms told him to wait “a few weeks” after submitting the form. In the first live stream, hackers with footage of SpaceX rocket launches featuring Elon Musk attracted 40,000 subscribers. They had already transferred $4,000 in Bitcoin.

Channel hacked. 2FA bypassed.

Live-streaming a Bitcoin scam to 40,000 live viewers.

Hackers have made $4,000 in Bitcoin so far. @TeamYouTube tells me I need to fill out a form and wait “a few weeks”.

If any ACTUAL YouTube reps see this, please get in contact with me. pic.twitter.com/s276Wp1LAt

— Jon Prosser (@jon_prosser) August 6, 2020

The criminals deleted seven years of content created by the blogger. Prosser’s appeal did not go unnoticed by YouTube administrators, who blocked the channel roughly two hours after his tweet.

We did, we were working on that separately from the account access issue!

— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) August 6, 2020

The largest video hosting platform has not been immune to the problem of using images of public figures for “advertising” in fraud schemes. Victims have included many celebrities, including Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, and Steve Wozniak. Yet the platform’s lawyers plan to disavow responsibility for crypto scams. A precedent could be set by Ripple and its CEO Brad Garlinghouse.

The Prosser case differs from the aforementioned ones because the hackers managed to carry out SIM swapping and access his account, protected by two-factor authentication.

Prosser may not have been the only victim in a string of similar incidents.

happening again right now: many more large verified YouTube accounts have been hacked including @jon_prosser bypassing 2FA, have had their names changed to Elon Musk NASA, and are live streaming Bitcoin scams with over 100,000 fake viewers through botting https://t.co/eYZ90wNuce pic.twitter.com/JCfxtRk7yB

— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) August 6, 2020

YouTube has also been involved in scandals surrounding the blocking of cryptocurrency companies and their leading figures, as well as crypto bloggers. The latest cases affected Bitcoin.com and Altcoin Daily.

Earlier ForkLog and PRO BLOCKCHAIN discussed blocks on YouTube.

Subscribe to ForkLog news on VK!