BEWARE: 3 serious attacks on Creators LAST WEEK!

Hi Reader,

It’s been one heck of a week as scammers are actively targeting Creators.

Hack 1 – Access Control

Date: Dec 19th.

I dealt with a case where a Creator was hacked and lost their channel. This was done not by hacking the Creator, but by hacking their editor.

The hackers managed to gain access to the Editor’s Google account and using that, they accessed his YouTube channel.

The hacker removed the channel owner’s account, changed the password, and uploaded their Crypto scam.

The Creator contacted YouTube and started the process of getting their channel back, however, they were horrified to find this message:

To make matters worse, the Creatos had several brand deals lined up for an upcoming tech conference in January.

When one of the brands tried to access his channel and saw that it was shut down, they informed the Creator that while they empathized with the Creator, they had to cancel their brand deal.

The Creator literally lost thousands of dollars!

You can listen to the voice note he sent me:

Thankfully, we managed to recover his channel however, he now has the arduous task of building his channel’s momentum all over again.

The Lesson here:

Check who has access to your channel. No one should have the ability to manage your YouTube channel.
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If you work with editors, giving them Editor Permission means that while they can’t manage permissions or delete videos, they can go live, and create and edit content.

But did you know that an Editor can also:

  • Can chat or moderate chat within Live Control Room
  • Create posts
  • Can comment
  • Can link Google Ads accounts!?!

Understand the full implication of adding someone to your channel by clicking here to see YouTube’s info and in the Security For Creators course, we dive into how to safely work with a team.

Hack 2 – Trademark Issue

Date: Dec 15th​
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Alex, a Creator with 62 000 subscribers, had their channel hacked – this time YouTube was not restoring his channel and it seemed to be due to a “Trademark violation”

This caused an issue on YouTube’s side as it looked like they acknowledged the hack, but because it triggered a trademark issue, that was a whole other Legal department.

In my experience, I have never seen a channel hacked and not restored due to whatever the hackers did AFTER the hack. YouTube doesn’t hold the Creator responsible for what the hackers do.
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Good news: After people tagged YouTube on Twitter, his channel is now back. I am waiting to see a breakdown of exactly what happened.
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​The Lesson here:

It doesn’t matter how “small” or “big” the channel is. Everyone is a target and anyone can get hacked.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you are not on their radar!

Hack 3 – Band Deal Hack

Date: Dec 15th

There is currently an email making its way around to Creators which appears to come from Samsung Partners.

It is one of the better emails I have seen.

The email address checks out and so does the website which is why so many Creators fell for it and lost access to their channels.
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I put this video together which you can check out here:
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All three hacks happened within the week. There are several more that I am working with that haven’t come out publically so I won’t mention them here.

And of course, there are MANY more hacked channels which you can see for yourself just by looking at the TeamYouTube Twitter account.

Beware: Creators are under attack and unfortunately this will be much worse in 2025.

The best way to protect your channel, your business, and your income, is with education.

Know what to look out for, how to set up your channel correctly, what settings you need to set, and have the right tools to protect yourself.

2-Factor Authentication is NOT enough to protect your channel!​
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Don’t wait until it’s too late and only then make security a priority.

Sadly, I have seen this time and time again and it’s never fun.

Don’t let hackers ruin your festive season!

Liron Segev