Linus Tech Tips & Techquickie is Breached

markstitovits

Level 2
Thread author
Sep 13, 2022
54
Content source
https://www.youtube.com
The channel seems to be breached, both Linus Tech Tips and Techquickie. The videos from Linus Tech Tips channels have been deleted or set to unlisted, unlike on Techquickie. Both Channels are livestreaming the usual Tesla scam. I wonder who is behind these Tesla scams, It's happening more and more often. Linus Media Group have not yet addressed this problem. There's also no news source on this yet, at the time of writing the channels are streaming for the past 90 minutes.

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Screenshot 2023-03-23 141839.png
Screenshot 2023-03-23 143144.png




The 2 channels are now under "@tesla-ltt" and "@tesla-us-now"
 
Last edited:

mlnevese

Level 26
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Well-known
May 3, 2015
1,531
I don't think Linus will have any trouble reuploading his entire channel if he needs to. He once showed how he keeps all his videos backed up in a local server farm and he has enough people working for him to reupload whatever can't be recovered by Youtube. His biggest problem will be lost statistics.
 

Razza

Level 4
Verified
Well-known
Aug 12, 2014
163
Hopefully the channel is back soon, even if the person who hacked the account did delete all the uploaded videos, I doubt they would need to reupload them, Youtube probably doesn't actual delete the video straightaway most likely just get marked for deletion on the back-end and deleted at a later time, if that the case Youtube should be able to just rollback the account to before the hack.
 

Shadowra

Level 33
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Content Creator
Malware Tester
Well-known
Sep 2, 2021
2,246
I think someone must have run a malicious file like "Contract.pdf.exe" without realizing it...
In France, YouTubers fall into the trap a lot and get tricked.
Inside, there are RedLine or RacoonStealer or Aurora / SnakeKeyloggers that steal cookies, tokens and passwords.

Even if they have Bitdefender (which is an excellent antivirus I might add!) if the malware is FUD and well coded and targeted, it will pass the protections.
 

SeriousHoax

Level 47
Well-known
Mar 16, 2019
3,630
I think someone must have run a malicious file like "Contract.pdf.exe" without realizing it...
In France, YouTubers fall into the trap a lot and get tricked.
Inside, there are RedLine or RacoonStealer or Aurora / SnakeKeyloggers that steal cookies, tokens and passwords.

Even if they have Bitdefender (which is an excellent antivirus I might add!) if the malware is FUD and well coded and targeted, it will pass the protections.
They don't use any third-party AV pretty sure, Linus said it before. Bitdefender is just one of their sponsors. Most of the celebrities who are brand ambassador for Android phones use iPhone in real life. I remember Xiaomi's CEO was caught using iPhone as his personal phone 😂
It doesn't have to be a malware to get passwords stolen. Phishing is the most common method.
 

ScandinavianFish

Level 7
Verified
Dec 12, 2021
317
Just because they advertise Bitdefender, doesn’t mean they really use that 😀
Nevertheless, the attack was most likely phishing email at times when they know the youtuber will be tired and not too careful.
I highly doubt it, it was definitely an fake sponsorship email with malware masquerading as a PDF or Word document attached, or an supposed unreleased "game" for them to try, I have seen this twice before and both had their account compromised these ways, one via a fake pdf document, and one trough a fake game.
 
F

ForgottenSeer 72227

This is very unfortunate!

At the end of the day this just proves that anything can happen to anyone, regardless of your technical skills.
They don't use any third-party AV pretty sure, Linus said it before
I thought they used Sentinel one as their security solution? It may have changed, but I thought they had one at one point not long ago. While I do not know for sure, it could very well be one of those situations where they have a 3rd party solution for LMG, but not on their personal devices.

Assuming they are indeed running a 3rd party solution, it just serves as a reminder that any solution can be bypassed, no matter how good it is....assuming it was malware. More than likely it's a solcial engineering phishing scam that got them.
 

Trident

Level 27
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Well-known
Feb 7, 2023
1,629
Sentinel One is useless unless the XDR is managed by individuals who have deep knowledge of both the threat landscape and Windows. Otherwise, it is even less effective than a home antivirus. I am not convinced they use business products, as most of them require volume licensing.
 
F

ForgottenSeer 72227

Sentinel One is useless unless the XDR is managed by individuals who have deep knowledge of both the threat landscape and Windows. Otherwise, it is even less effective than a home antivirus. I am not convinced they use business products, as most of them require volume licensing.
I am not 100% sure... I do remember seeing it in a video awhile ago on one of their laptops, so either they are using it, or maybe they were just trialing it? He did say he will provide an update at some point, so maybe he will confirm wheather they have a 3rd party security solution, or not...
 

Trident

Level 27
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Feb 7, 2023
1,629
I am not 100% sure... I do remember seeing it in a video awhile a go on one of their laptops, so either they are using it, or maybe they were just trialing it? He did say he will provide an update at some point, so maybe he will confirm wheather they have a 3rd party security solution, or not...
They are very difficult to purchase, I would love to purchase some of them but apart from Sophos and CheckPoint, I am unable to find single license at a good price. They sell 10+, some of them 100+. They are about £30 per station and that’s the most basic product. I can’t even buy email security product.
 

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