Crypto exchanges, influencers fall prey to hack, YouTube accounts hijacked

In a case of a complex and co-ordinated cryptocurrency cybercrime, hackers allegedly hijacked YouTube servers to gain access to a specific set of Cryptocurrency influencers, and then went on to post videos asking the subscribers of the influencers to deposit money into a certain cryptocurrency wallet.   

“My YouTube account (along with many others) was hijacked today - it posted some scam video about “one world cryptocurrency”. This is a scam and I’ve never uploaded or authorised this video .This is likely a hijacking attack on YouTube,” tweeted Youtuber and Cryptocurrency influencer Boxmining.   

Another influencer from India, going by the name of Arun Maini, posted, “I think someone just got into my YouTube account and posted something, did anyone manage to get a screen recording?”  

Apart from the influencers, YouTube pages of Indian exchanges such as CoinDCX, WazirX and Unocoin were also compromised briefly.   

The video asked users to send cryptocurrencies such as USD Coin, Binance and Ether in exchange for an unheard of cryptocurrency called as OWCY, short for one world crpyotcurrency.     

“Exact same video promoting some OWCY crypto is getting posted on lot of Youtube accounts, I wonder how they are managing to bypass Google's security?” user Lord Beerus tweeted.   

Some of the other well-known investors whose accounts were hijacked include bitboy_crypto, themooncarl, Ivanontech and Altcoinbuzzion. The video claimed that OWCY would soon be listed on cryptocurrency platforms CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko, with neither of them having such a cryptocurrency live yet.   

Cryptocurrency has become notorious for such giveaway scams owing to two main factors, that transactions are irreversible, and that the scamster can remain anonymous. The anonymity also makes cryptocurrencies the most preferred tool for ransomware payouts.   

In January, a similar scam was unearthered where an address that impersonated Michael Saylor, the CEO of business intelligence company MicroStrategy, amassing over $1.1 million in bitcoin till January 17.