by Google
Hackers have found another way to get rich through fraudulent practices on the Internet and are exploiting YouTubers for this. Fraudsters steal trusted YouTube channels and then run illegal live streams on them, which in the vast majority of cases ends in the complete cancellation of the YouTube channel. In the last 3 months there have been several account thefts that we have managed to save, so we decided to write an article on what to watch out for and what to do if someone hacks your YouTube channel.
HOW TO RECOGNIZE A HACKER ATTACK?
Hackers and fraudsters on the Internet have become more cunning in recent times and it is much more difficult to detect them. They are often hiding behind trusted brand names or masquerading as a startup developing a new software or game. p>
The whole scam takes place in such a way that the fraudster sends a fake email with a favorable offer of cooperation to the YouTube creator. This email always contains an invitation to download the software. As soon as you start installing the program, a new extension will automatically be added to your web browser, through which hackers will steal all the data they need. The very dangerous thing about the whole scam is that as soon as you start installing the program, your data is gone within a few seconds. By downloading and installing the software, you have given hackers a free ticket to your computer where they can download all your data, log into your YouTube channel, change passwords and cut off contact. The theft was successful. So what to watch out for? You can recognize a hacker by these signs: Even though the email may look completely believable, always check the email address the message was sent to just to be sure. Some hackers are less thorough and even if they pretend to be a trustworthy brand, they will send the email from a strange address such as 5438support@gmail.com. Other, more cunningfraudsters pay attention to the email address, they even create fake websitesand try to appear trustworthy, e.g. eve.commercial@nordkeeper.com. A fraudulent email can also look like this: Dreliable brands usually have official email addresses in the form of name@znacka.com/ sk/net, such as adam@vidadu.net. First of all, be very careful about collaborations that come from e-mail addresses of web browsers such as gmail or hotmail and always compare the sender's e-mail address with the official e-mail addresses on the official website. Beware, scammers sometimes include their "official website" in their emails, which is just a fake page. Therefore, always find the official website by entering keywords into web browsers, for example by entering "nordvpn" in google. Hackers want to impress you and extract from you the data necessary to steal a YouTube channel, and therefore they will hide behind a trustworthy company with an interesting offer that will appeal to you. The entire communication looks completely normal at first glance, the terms of cooperation and the fee are discussed, but later there always comes a stage when the fraudsters will encourage you to download some program. Hackers often use the practice of claiming that some operating systems have problems with the program and that is why the addressed YouTuber should download the program and try it out to be sure that everything will work correctly for him. Be especially beware of collaboration offers where a company or startup asks you to download and test the software or game it is developing. You will not download a game or a super app , but you give hackers access to steal data. As we have already mentioned several times, impersonating well-known brands is a popular fraudulent tactic of hackers. Recently, we have noticed that fraudsters have returned again with fake offers in the name of the NordVPN brand, which warns about these hackers on its website in an article about internet scams. NordVPN also released information that it only works with the nordvpn.com and nordvpn.org domains and urges people to you have verified the offer sent from another domain through customer service on the nordvpn.com page or email support@nordvpn.com. Very recently, we even managed to uncover a very sophisticated fraud. Members of our network received an offer of cooperation from Beer Night Studio, which tried to appear very believable. The offer was sent from the email marian.brown@beernightstudios.tech and looked like this: The fraudsters met all the signs mentioned above, pretended to be an existing brand, created a web domain, a relatively trustworthy email and sent a work-in-progress the offer of cooperation so that everything seems convincing. In this case, the hackers exploited the fact that it is a smaller brand that does not have an official website, only a Facebook profile and is not completely easy to find their official contacts. However, as we have experience with hackers and the condition of cooperation was to download the game, we decided to verify the authenticity of the offer. At first we tried to find their official website, but since we couldn't find any, we also started looking on social networks. Finally, we managed to find Beer Night Studio on Facebook, where they also listed their contact. As soon as we found the official email, we contacted Beer Night Studio and asked them to confirm if this is a legitimate offer. for our YouTube partners and we received this response: The official contact clearly confirmed to us that this is a scam and our suspicion turned out to be justified. That's why we firmly believe that if someone approaches you with an offer that will include downloading games or programs, definitely check whether it is a trustworthy contact. As you could see in this case, the fraudsters had set up a convincing-looking email address, and overall it was a very sophisticated scam, which seemed completely believable until the last moment. This fraud also only confirms that hackers are becoming more and more cunning and purposefully hide behind brands that are difficult to verify the veracity of the data and regularly hide behind a nice email that looks professional.MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN STOLEN AND I NEED HELP
1. EMAIL ADDRESS CAN LIE
2. THEY OFFER BENEFICIAL COOPERATION
3. THEY DEVELOP SOFTWARE AND PRETEND TO BE A WELL-KNOWN BRAND
EXAMPLE OF SCAM WE DISCOVERED
WHY DO THEY DO IT?
Hackers have found a way to earn a lot of money with a relatively simple fraud. After the scammer steals your account, he starts a live stream on it, offering viewers a cryptocurrency appreciation. Stream scammers play recordings of online conferences or lectures by well-known experts and also use bots to make it look like thousands of people are watching the stream. They create the impression that this is a trustworthy live stream and invite people to send any amount of bitcoins to the account and get back double the deposit. Of course, no appreciation of bitcoins will occur, and the naive viewers who were interested in investing their money will never see it again, and the fraudsters have made money again. At the same time, the movement of bitcoins is very difficult to trace and it is impossible for an ordinary person to get back his money.
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF?
First of all, you should protect your YouTube channel and all your social networkstwo-step verification. Although this verification will protect you from someone else logging into your account, but it won't protect you from an infected file that you install yourself thinking it's part of a collaboration. You have to be especially careful about this type of fraud and watch out for the 3 signs of a hacker described above.
Scammers have not disappeared on the Internet, they are just better able to disguise themselves today. Therefore, if you receive any offer of cooperation, be very careful and check whether it is a trustworthy source. However, if you could not prevent it and hackers stole your account, then definitely contact us and we will help you get your channel back as quickly as possible.
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