YouTube is being criticized for failing to deal with a network of cybercriminals streaming fake Elon Musk videos to deceive viewers.
Criminals are hijacking YouTube accounts and using videos to promote fake cryptocurrency giveaways. BBC News found that tens of thousands of people watched dozens of these streams over four days this month.
On Tuesday, Elon Musk said that YouTube is not dealing with “scam ads.” YouTube says it removes the reported channels. For several months, Streams has been fooling thousands of people into sending crypto to criminals, thinking they will receive rewards from Mr Musk.
One of the most common links to the website is https://elon-x2.live/, which invites people to double their money by sending bitcoin or Ethereum to an advertised digital-wallet address.
Wallet transaction history shows the scammers made $243,000 (£194,000) in just over a week:
- 23 transfers of bitcoin totalling 7.68923261 coins worth $234,000
- 18 transfers of Ethereum totalling 5.016 coins worth $9,000
Analysts at Whale Alert say giveaway scammer wallets they track show profits of:
- $98m in 2021
- $30m so far this year
Every few days, hackers change the names and photos of dozens of YouTube channels to make them look like the official Tesla channel, the electric-car maker of which Mr Musk is a chief executive officer.
It’s believed they buy email and password pairs from past data breaches online – or just try normal passwords with known email addresses. Chilean urban-music artist Isaac hacked and hijacked a YouTube channel two weeks ago.
“My followers on other social networks started asking me what is going on with the name of my channel and were very confused about why I was streaming Tesla content,” he said.
“It is very frustrating that your YouTube channel is hacked after dedicating so many years of work to it.
“I feel completely violated and insecure.
“The hacking of my channel has hurt me a lot since I am a few days away from releasing a new music video and now I am creating a second channel as a backup and re-uploading more than 10 years of work on YouTube.
“YouTube is not doing enough on security issues to prevent hacker attacks, since many users are in the same situation as me.”
“We have strict community guidelines prohibiting scams, including impersonation and hacking,” YouTube said.
Last year, after seeing a fake ad on Twitter, a man sent $400,000 worth of bitcoin in hopes of doubling his money.
So far this year, scammers are having little success, said Whale Alert founder Frank Van Weert, but they are still making millions and are ready to promote it if the price of bitcoin goes up.