YouTuber with 13 million subscribers hacked by crypto scammers; Here is how a lot they stole

Widespread YouTuber Scuba Jake has confirmed the hacking of his channel with over 13 million subscribers and 1.75 billion views because the channel’s creation in 2011. The September 9 incident noticed crypto scammers take over the channel and try and defraud unsuspecting followers in a pretend giveaway involving Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). 

An evaluation by Finbold signifies that the scammers made away with 1.01 BTC, equal to about $21,000 within the pretend crypto giveaway. The evaluation was primarily based on QR codes shared by scammers for customers to scan earlier than sending the cryptocurrencies. 

In response to Blockchain.com, the Bitcoin pockets shared has recorded 4 transactions since its creation. The pockets acquired a complete of 1.0107 BTC, the identical quantity that was additionally cashed out. 

It’s price noting that the misplaced quantity could possibly be larger because the scammers might need modified the wallets through the dwell stream. Elsewhere, the Ethereum pockets evaluation signifies no transaction has been made. 

The rip-off mirrored different fraudulent incidents on YouTube the place scammers use an outdated interview involving a famend particular person in crypto circles, re-post it as a livestream, and promote the pretend giveaway within the info part. It’s argued that scammers go for the dwell choice as a result of it affords extra credibility.

How scammer defrauded Scuba Jake followers 

Underneath the hack, the scammer modified the Scuba Jake’s channel to ‘MicroStargey US,’ impersonating the crypto-friendly United States enterprise intelligence agency MicroStrategy. 

Notably, the scammers hosted a minimum of two dwell streams of an outdated video involving outgoing MicroStrategy’s CEO and Bitcoin crusader Michael Saylor. On this case, the scammers lured unsuspecting followers into sending cryptocurrency, pondering they might obtain a prize from Saylor or larger returns. 

The scammers focused the treasure hunt channel, probably because of the huge following, contemplating that since its creation in 2011, it has amassed over 1.7 billion views cumulatively. The channel had been restored by press time, with Jake confirming the identical by an Instagram story on September 10. 

General, instances of scammers leveraging YouTube have been on the rise impacting high-profile people and organizations. As reported by Finbold, scammers additionally hacked the YouTube channel belonging to the South Korean authorities and shared a crypto video. Nevertheless, the federal government managed to revive the account. 

YouTube on the spot over crypto scams 

Beforehand, the YouTube crypto scams have also targeted Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk. Particularly, scammers have taken over varied channels impersonating Musk whereas promising pretend giveaways. 

The state of affairs has resulted in Musk blasting YouTube for allegedly doing nothing in tackling the fraud in a tweet posted on June 7, 2022. Saylor additionally expressed his frustration with YouTube’s failure to behave with a reply to the tweet. 

Moreover, analysis by antivirus software program agency Kaspersky revealed that apart from hijacking YouTube channels, scammers are more and more prowling the feedback part underneath movies to advertise pretend crypto providers whereas providing low costs for sure currencies.

Notably, the dangerous actors normally goal top-trending movies and depart feedback selling a pretend “breach” within the crypto market with attractive statistics.