One of YouTube"s biggest tech channels went down earlier today thanks to a hacker group. Linus Tech Tips is owned by the channel"s online host Linus Sebastian, and it has over 15 million subscribers on its YouTube account. Today, the channel was renamed by the unnamed hackers (via The Verge). The group removed the channel"s videos and replaced them with two identical "live stream" videos that feature Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who is not involved in this attack.
The channel has since been removed from public viewing, but there"s no word yet on how the group managed to take over Linus Tech Tips in the first place. The channel"s web-based forums have issued an alert about its current issues. It also said two other YouTube channels owned by the same team, Tech Quickie, and Tech Linked, have been hacked as well. The message added:
Linus Media Group has been notified however there is no current ETA for when the channel will be recovered.
This incident is not the first time a major YouTube channel has been taken over by hackers. In 2022, the popular VFX-based channel Corridor Crew got hacked, and was replaced with an unrelated livestream.
Source: The Verge