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[Rentahamster]

Update 2: They're back, and the breach happened just as we thought it did. A staffer's account was compromised by malware which allowed the hackers to bypass 2FA. Sneaky stuff.




Update: Now their Youtube channel links to page not found.

https://www.youtube.com/@temporaryhandle/featured

https://www.youtube.com/user/LinusTechTips

I got some weird ass notifications from Youtube, and after about 15 seconds, realized what happened. Their official Twitter hasn't said anything yet.

https://twitter.com/LinusTech

Their official website is also currently borked https://linustechtips.com/

This video shows how you can get compromised by this hack.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Maybe he just finally went to the dark side after all these years.

Also, their YT page is gone for the moment. It's nearly 5am where they are based. I imagine something will get shared in a few hours.

 

[GymWolf]

Maybe someone was finally annoyed by his thumbnails and decided to take action...

 

[winjer]

Not big loss. His content was has been kinda shit for the last few years.
There are much better tech channels to watch.

 

[nightmare-slain]

Good thing they keep all their videos stored. He's always building some crazy petabyte servers for storage.

I'm sure the channel will be back up soon but this sucks.

Not big loss. His content was has been kinda shit for the last few years.
There are much better tech channels to watch.

Mind listing some?

Maybe someone was finally annoyed by his thumbnails and decided to take action...

He isn't the only one who makes cringey thumbnails. I hate these stupid thumbnails with faces like and huge big red arrows pointing at something obvious.

 

[Kilau]

Maybe someone was finally annoyed by his thumbnails and decided to take action...

You know what’s not annoying?



Our sponsor, Nord VPN keeps all your information private and secu…

 

[winjer]

Good thing they keep all their videos stored. He's always building some crazy petabyte servers for storage.

I'm sure the channel will be back up soon but this sucks.


Mind listing some?

Actually Hardcore Overclocking
Asianometry
Branch Education
Chris Titus Tech
Computerphile
Dave's Garage
der8auer EN
Gamers Nexus
Hardware Unboxed
LGR
Modern Vintage Gamer
RTL Engineering
TechTechPotato
The PC Security Channel
ThioJoe
Jarrod'sTech
Daniel Owen

 

[eddie4]

That's what he gets for wearing socks and sandals.

jk. That sucks, he does mention they have a lot of videos saved, so I assume it will be back up, along with an explanation of what happened. Don't really watch his videos, but every now and then, I'll check something out, along with the channels winjer listed.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

I watch their channels all the time. Wouldn't wish that on anyone. Hope they sort it out asap.

 

[Spyxos]

I was wondering what this strange Stream it was.

 

[nightmare-slain]

Actually Hardcore Overclocking
Asianometry
Branch Education
Chris Titus Tech
Computerphile
Dave's Garage
der8auer EN
Gamers Nexus
Hardware Unboxed
LGR
Modern Vintage Gamer
RTL Engineering
TechTechPotato
The PC Security Channel
ThioJoe
Jarrod'sTech
Daniel Owen

Thanks!

I usually just watch LTT, GamersNexus, Jayz2cents, hardware unboxed. not heard of a lot of them. I'll check them out.

 

[Chronicle]

Crime is the most cowardly thing on this planet. Brutal

 

[ParaSeoul]

First tech tip,enable two factor authentication

 

[nightmare-slain]

First tech tip,enable two factor authentication

I'm really curious how they got hacked. It seems strange that one of the biggest tech channels gets hacked. I know it can happen to anyone but they must have solid security. I wonder if we'll ever find out what happened.

 

[GymWolf]

Not big loss. His content was has been kinda shit for the last few years.
There are much better tech channels to watch.

He died for me when he tried to make a sorry excuse for that fucking moron who did the verge build video.

Imagine making a video with that idiot who never even admitted his faults and just called everyone a racist.

They are made for each other i guess.

 

[winjer]

Thanks!

I usually just watch LTT, GamersNexus, Jayz2cents, hardware unboxed. not heard of a lot of them. I'll check them out.

These tech channels cover a lot of varied tech content.
Some are about software. Some about retro stuff. Some about overclocking. Some about hardware reviews. Some about high high level hardware analysis and education.
A few are software engineers, not just youtubers that test stuff. For example, Dave's Garage is from an ex-Microsoft programmer, that makes awesome videos explaining why and how MS made a lot of stuff.

 

[winjer]

He died for me when he tried to make a sorry excuse for that fucking moron who did the verge build video.

Imagine making a video with that idiot who never even admitted his faults and just called everyone a racist.

They are made for each other i guess.

OMG, that video from Verge was one of the funniest and dumbest things ever.
And definitely proved that The Verge sucks ass for tech information.

 

[ParaSeoul]

I'm really curious how they got hacked. It seems strange that one of the biggest tech channels gets hacked. I know it can happen to anyone but they must have solid security. I wonder if we'll ever find out what happened.

It will definitely be recovered,I've heard other non tech youtubers also got hit with similar hacks that end up running crypto scams,one even pretended to be an official tesla youtube channel

 

[Xcell Miguel]

I'm baffled at how much YouTube just sucks at protecting channels...

15M+ subscribers channel and they let "it" unlist all videos, change name, image, description...
Without doing anything.

They also got their other channels, YouTube just does nothing, they doesn't care.
But putting ads and shit, demonetizing videos for some bad words (for americans..), that, they can do easily, protecting their biggest users, they can't.

 

[Rentahamster]

First tech tip,enable two factor authentication

The hack that got them probably bypassed their 2FA protection.

I'm really curious how they got hacked. It seems strange that one of the biggest tech channels gets hacked. I know it can happen to anyone but they must have solid security. I wonder if we'll ever find out what happened.

They video I linked explains it.

 

[Danknugz]

Update: Now their Youtube channel links to page not found.

https://www.youtube.com/@temporaryhandle/featured

https://www.youtube.com/user/LinusTechTips

I got some weird ass notifications from Youtube, and after about 15 seconds, realized what happened. Their official Twitter hasn't said anything yet.

https://twitter.com/LinusTech

Their official website is also currently borked https://linustechtips.com/

This video shows how you can get compromised by this hack.

i watched some of that youtube video and this doesn't seem like any kind of 0day in a browser or youtube itself and still requires the user to somehow allow malware onto their system in the first place which then pilfers the youtube cookie. in other words you still have to fail somewhere along the way and allow yourself to get tricked into running / allowing the hack to occur in the first place.

the actual issue is that youtube apparently doesn't force 2FA all the time or even ask for your password again if you're already logged in with a cookie session and try to change your pass or security configurations. which is opposite from what i've experienced, google always asks me at least for my password again.

 

[Rentahamster]

i watched some of that youtube video and this doesn't seem like any kind of 0day in a browser or youtube itself and still requires the user to somehow allow malware onto their system in the first place which then pilfers the youtube cookie. in other words you still have to fail somewhere along the way and allow yourself to get tricked into running / allowing the hack to occur in the first place.

I wouldn't be surprised if this happened because one of the staffers with the keys to the account fucked up.

 

[Tams]

This doesn't seem like a normal hack. They're deleting pretty much all the videos.

As annoying as LTT can be at times (though I understand the algorithm game), they are pretty decent and do not deserve this.

At least they have Floatplane. That was a very wise investment.

 

[Tommi84]

they are pretty decent and do not deserve this.

I treat them more of an entertainment rather than professional advice, but true to this. And scammers suck and go to jail!

 

[AJUMP23]

I wonder how much help Youtube will give them to restore everything. I assume LTT is a huge revenue driver.

 

[nightmare-slain]

I wonder how much help Youtube will give them to restore everything. I assume LTT is a huge revenue driver.

They will definitely get help from YT. They are one of the biggest tech channels on there. They'll probably have direct contact to people at Google/YouTube. The channel will be restored soon no doubt.

This doesn't seem like the normal hack. They're deleting pretty all the videos.

As annoying as LTT can be at times (though I understand the algorithm game), they are pretty decent and do not deserve this.

At least they have Floatplane. That was a very wise investment.

and they are always upgrading their storage. so even if the videos are deleted from YouTube they won't be lost. In fact i doubt they will need to reupload anything. Surely Google hasn't completely scrubbed the videos from their servers and they can restore them?

EDIT: from LTT forums

"Linus has published a statement on Floatplane:

Regarding the YouTube channel hack, we are on top of it with Google's team now. Everything should be locked down and we are getting to the bottom of the attack vector with the (hopeful) goal of hardening their security around YouTube accounts and preventing this sort of thing from happening to anyone in the future. You can expect a more detailed update on WAN Show at some point in the future. Not sure if it'll happen this week since this is still a developing situation. The good news is that you can expect to get your LTT fix on Floatplane as usual

Linus"

 

[DeepEnigma]

He should have had "tech tips" about getting "hacked."

 

[nightmare-slain]

He should have had "tech tips" about getting "hacked."

 

[ManaByte]

I bet Apple did it after he intentionally destroyed his iMac Pro and then threw Apple under the bus for not repairing it.

 

[AJUMP23]

He should have had "tech tips" about getting "hacked."

I bet he already does.

 

[Rush2112]

If he’s so good how come he got hacked

 

[Pejo]

If he’s so good how come he got hacked

If his channel's so big, why won't it fight me?

 

[nani17]

Clearly someone inside fucked up

 

[IntentionalPun]

Probably social engineering. Probably malware.

There have been articles about this.. Google can't really do shit to protect people who can't seem to protect themselves. You are logged into YouTube on your computer, and if you end up installing some malware that malware can do whatever the hell it wants.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Probably social engineering. Probably malware.

There have been articles about this.. Google can't really do shit to protect people who can't seem to protect themselves. You are logged into YouTube on your computer, and if you end up installing some malware that malware can do whatever the hell it wants.

True, and not very tech adept if one installs malware.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

This is just the woke mob attempting to cancel him after he admitted to dropping hard r’s

 

[Cyberpunkd]

"Linus has published a statement on Floatplane:

Regarding the YouTube channel hack, we are on top of it with Google's team now. Everything should be locked down and we are getting to the bottom of the attack vector with the (hopeful) goal of hardening their security around YouTube accounts and preventing this sort of thing from happening to anyone in the future.

Love the spin - someone at LTT fucked up and clicked something they shouldn’t but it’s somehow a Google fault.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Looking forward to the WAN show tomorrow since I'm sure they have something to say.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Love the spin - someone at LTT fucked up and clicked something they shouldn’t but it’s somehow a Google fault.

It's always this way with every "hack."

Remember when people used to always post their XBL or PSN accounts got "hacked"? AKA they did something stupid either w/ malware or using the same password everywhere.

Hardly anyone admits to bad security practices.. if you went by what people say publicly everyone uses a perfectly unique password everywhere, and has 2FA enabled, and never clicks random links, etc.,etc.. but anyone w/ any experience w/ web security knows it's BS lol

The "big guys" have all adopted things like checking IP addresses, blocking logins from random places, etc. a long time ago.. if that wasn't tripped off by this activity? That means they are on your network.. on your machine.. AKA malware. People have been suggesting that it was just "session cookies getting stolen and uploaded elsewhere" and that is completely unlikely to me.. I've done auth systems before and random PEN test companies caught stuff like that, the idea Google hasn't tested for things that are a part of widely known attack vectors is nonsense to me.

 

[diffusionx]

I like the topics that LTT picks, but what always annoys me is how this guy always screws something up, like in a recent video he squirted thermal paste all over a CPU socket because he just didn't give a shit. This wasn't a regular mobo either, it was a server system for Intel's $7k CPUs. But surely a tech site getting hacked with this bottom tier malware is unsub worthy.

 

[Celcius]

Weird, I don't see it my subscribed channels anymore. Does this mean all 15m+ subscribers would have to subscribe all over again? Ouch.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I like the topics that LTT picks, but what always annoys me is how this guy always screws something up, like in a recent video he squirted thermal paste all over a CPU socket because he just didn't give a shit. This wasn't a regular mobo either, it was a server system for Intel's $7k CPUs. But surely a tech site getting hacked with this bottom tier malware is unsub worthy.

The dude is a hack.

 

[64bitmodels]

holy shit that sucks

i liked linus' channel... I can't believe that he'd get hacked like this. i hope those fuckers are brought to justice because LTT didn't deserve this

 

[GymWolf]

OMG, that video from Verge was one of the funniest and dumbest things ever.
And definitely proved that The Verge sucks ass for tech information.

I watched that one with all the people rosting him at least 10 times, it's comedy gold.

 

[winjer]

Weird, I don't see it my subscribed channels anymore. Does this mean all 15m+ subscribers would have to subscribe all over again? Ouch.

A company like Google is constantly making backups, so they can restore it to a previous day.
Although this might take a few days to do.

 

[Rival]

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Maybe someone was finally annoyed by his thumbnails and decided to take action...

Those things pissed me off. A grown man doing that stuff, terrible.

 

[Drew1440]

He isn't the only one who makes cringey thumbnails. I hate these stupid thumbnails with faces like and huge big red arrows pointing at something obvious.

I recommend the clickbait remover extension for any Chrome based browser, which will removes the silly thumbnails and replacea them with stills from the video

 

[Victor Omega]

and he will come back to youtube as a victim (valid but hyperbole) with all of youtube tech tuber coming to his aid. he'll go on about how "we are so big" and "how the little channel don't get the same support from google"

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

So YT don't backup anything they host? Not even for a threshold of channel popularity/content size or something? One would think given the opportunity for Google to sell more premium plans for such features it would already be a thing. I'm glad I don't delve into the content creator side of internet things.

Pretty average situation to occur. Good luck if you're a small time YT channel and that happened. Backups, do them. Restores, test them.