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YouTube Accounts Targeted by Phishing Campaign

Google said in a statement that YouTube creators’ accounts have been targeted with the password-theft virus in a phishing campaign. This malware attack involves around 15,000 forged YouTube accounts and over a million messages to targets.

The phishing message campaigns were carried out by a huge number of hackers and Google has recaptured around 4000 accounts since been 2019. The hackers were trying to get the password of creators along they were trying to pollute the creator’s computer with a virus attack that would probably take away their login cookies.

The investigators with Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG), who found this attack first in 2019, said that this kind of malware attack is more powerful than sharing a link with the user and waiting for that user to click and they get the password.

YouTube said that the hackers were using the Russian-language forums to advertise their campaigns. These campaigns were focused on YouTube accounts instead of any large-scaled bank or government computer systems. This shows that nowadays influencers’ social accounts are more treasured and it’s an easy way to gain the attention of the audience.

YouTube Accounts Targeted by Phishing Campaign

The hackers were reaching out to YouTube creators to propose deals like sponsoring antivirus programs, a VPN, or any other software on the creator’s channel. The creators were used to get a link if they were agreed with the offer and when the creator clicked that link then the hackers infected the computer using a large number of malware programs to steal the user’s cookies and passwords.

Once the hackers got the YouTube account through cookies then they used to change the password to lock that user and through YouTube account, they used to hack the user’s Google Drive, Gmail, Photos, and other services related to that Gmail account.

As per the Search Engine giant, the hackers were able to sell these hacked YouTube account from price range from $3 to $4,000.