Massive Cyberattacks Hit YouTube Creators, Warning For 23 Million Others Issued

A massive cyberattack hit multiple accounts of several YouTube creators beginning last week. The attack continues to affect more accounts and puts 23 million other creators at serious risk.

Rants from several YouTube creators flooded Twitter and YouTube support forum over the weekend. The reports contained complaints about hackers completely taking over the YouTube creators’ accounts.

Victims describe the attack as a highly coordinated cyberattack that targeted high profile YouTube accounts. Topping the victims’ list are accounts from the car review community and auto-tuning YouTube creator, Musafir, PURE Function, Troy Sowers and MaxtChekVids to name a few.

Aside from the YouTube channels from the auto and car community, the allegedly coordinated cyberattack also targeted various channel genres such as Disney, tech, music and gaming. The wave of attack primarily targeted YouTube accounts from strong social media influencer creators.

How Did The Cyberattack Accessed Various YouTube Accounts

Hackers begin by enticing the YouTube creator to access a login page where they will be able to gather the owner’s account details. As the unsuspecting creator signs in and keys in his account credentials, hackers gain access to the creator’s YouTube account without resistance.

The accessed high profile channels are then re-assigned to a new owner where they change the channel’s vanity URL. Since the channel is re-assigned to new owners who now use the new vanity URL, the creator receives a “channel not available” response upon signing in using their credentials.

As the cyberattack enters, YouTube account will appear to the creators as a deleted channel. In this case, the hackers are even able to bypass the two-factor authentication.

What Hackers Do To The Multiple Attacked Channels

Askamani, an active OGUsers member and a hacker sees the signs of regular business on this cyberattack issue. He added that this is a clear manifestation that a specific sector’s long list of emails has been handed down to hackers.

Hackers, on the other hand, need to immediately dispose of their gathered account before they lose their value. YouTube tends to give the account back to the original owner upon recovery and that is what hackers are keeping an eye on.