YouTube has been accused of failing to stop fake livestreams of Elon Musk
Thousands of users have been tricked into donating bitcoin to criminals, believing they will receive a prize from Mr Musk.
YouTube has been criticized for failing to stop a network of cyber-criminals from broadcasting fake Elon Musk videos in an attempt to cheat viewers.
The criminals have taken over YouTube accounts and are exploiting the videos to advertise fake cryptocurrency giveaways.
Hundreds of thousands of viewers watched dozens of these feeds over the course of four days this month.
Elon Musk said on Tuesday that YouTube does not deal with “scam ads.” According to YouTube, channels that have been reported are removed.
Thousands of users have been tricked into donating bitcoin to criminals, believing they will receive a prize from Mr Musk, thanks to the streams, which have been going on for months.
One of the most popular connections leads to the website https://elon-x2.live/, which offers visitors to double their money by sending Bitcoin or Ethereum to the promoted digital-wallet addresses.
The scammers made $243,000 (£194,000) in just over a week, according to their wallet transaction history:
There were 23 bitcoin transfers totaling 7.68923261 coins worth $234,000 in total.
18 ethereum transfers totaling 5.016 coins worth $9,000
According to Whale Alert analysts, the giveaway scammer wallets they follow have revenues of $98 million in 2021 and $30 million so far this year.
Every few days, the hackers edit the names and images of dozens of YouTube channels to make them appear to be official Tesla channels, the electric-car company of which Mr Musk is the CEO.
They may purchase email and password sets from prior data breaches on the internet, or simply test popular passwords with known email addresses.
Aisack, a Chilean rapper, had his YouTube channel hacked and hijacked two weeks ago.
“My fans on other social media started asking me what was up with my channel’s name and were confused as to why I was streaming Tesla stuff,” he explained.
“It’s quite disappointing that your YouTube channel was hacked after so many years of dedication.
“I feel totally betrayed and insecure.”
“The hacking of my channel has been highly harmful to me, since I am just days away from releasing a new music video, and I am now constructing a backup channel and re-uploading more than ten years of work on YouTube.”
“Because many people are in the same condition as me, YouTube is not doing enough on security issues to prevent hacking assaults.”
After spotting a false advertisement on Twitter last year, a man wanting to double his money gave scammers $400,000 in bitcoins.
Scammers have had less success so far this year, according to Whale Alert founder Frank van Weert, but they are still making millions and are set for a boost if the price of Bitcoin rises.
“The numbers are decreasing compared to 2021,” Mr Van Weert added, “but there are still lots of victims falling for it as they evolve their approaches.”
“Right now, they’re overfishing the sea a little bit, especially with Bitcoin values falling, but that will change as long as nothing is done to stop them.”
He noted that the scammers could be stopped if bitcoin exchanges banned their wallets so they couldn’t pay out their stolen funds.
The biggest chunk of the false livestreams include Musk and then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on a discussion hosted by financial firm ARK Invest in July.
ARK “is aware of hacked third-party YouTube channels fraudulently posing as ARK,” a spokesman told the press.
“These accounts are impersonators who are in no way associated with ARK Invest,” she stated.
“ARK Invest will never solicit money, including bitcoin, on YouTube or other social media platforms.”
