YouTube took down Jon Prosser’s channel with 262K subscribers after hackers used it to promote a free Bitcoin giveaway scam.
Scammers have conned more YouTube viewers into sending them Bitcoin after hacking several more large verified accounts and posting ‘free giveaway’ videos.
According to an Aug. 5 tweet posted by Jon Prosser, his Front Page Tech YouTube channel with 262,000 subscribers was hacked by bad actors who changed the name to “NASA [news]” and began live streaming a fake Bitcoin (BTC) giveaway video featuring SpaceX’s Elon Musk.
“Hackers have made $4,000 in Bitcoin so far,” said Prosser. “YouTube tells me I need to fill out a form and wait ‘a few weeks.’”
Seven years’ worth of Front Page Tech’s videos were deleted by the scammers. YouTube took the channel down roughly two hours after Prosser first noticed the breach, and it remains offline.
‘2FA bypassed’
Crypto scammers have been targeting YouTube channels for months, impersonating high-profile figures like Musk, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Both Garlinghouse and Wozniak have filed separate lawsuits against the platform.
However, Prosser’s case is worrying as he reported the hackers used a SIM swap attack to gain access to his channel using its two-factor authentication (2FA).
The breach comes just one day after Scott Melker, AKA ‘The Wolf of All Streets’, advised the crypto community to “never use SMS verification as a part of your 2FA,” but rather an authenticator app from a device kept offline.
Coordinated attack?
Prosser’s channel wasn’t even the only one targeted this week.
Rod Breslau, a gaming consultant for Sony Music Entertainment, reported on Aug. 3 several other channels were live streaming similar SpaceX videos offering BTC giveaways.
Talyta Rocha, a “hair influencer” with 155,000 subscribers, was one of the victims. One channel with 295,000 subscribers has been allowed to broadcast an Ethereum (ETH) scam video for more than an hour as of this writing.
