Security Newsletter

25 Oct 2021

How Hackers Hijacked Thousands of High-Profile YouTube Accounts

Since at least 2019, hackers have been hijacking high-profile YouTube channels. Sometimes they broadcast cryptocurrency scams, sometimes they simply auction off access to the account. Now, Google has detailed the technique that hackers-for-hire used to compromise thousands of YouTube creators in just the past couple of years.

Cryptocurrency scams and account takeovers themselves aren’t a rarity; look no further than last fall’s Twitter hack for an example of that chaos at scale. But the sustained assault against YouTube accounts stands out both for its breadth and for the methods hackers used, an old maneuver that’s nonetheless incredibly tricky to defend against.

It all starts with a phish. Attackers send YouTube creators an email that appears to be from a real service—like a VPN, photo editing app, or antivirus offering—and offer to collaborate. They propose a standard promotional arrangement: Show our product to your viewers and we’ll pay you a fee. It’s the kind of transaction that happens every day for YouTube’s luminaries, a bustling industry of influencer payouts.

 

FIN7 Recruits Talent For Push Into Ransomware

The financially motivated FIN7 cybercrime gang has masqueraded as yet another fictitious cybersecurity company called "Bastion Secure" to recruit unwitting software engineers under the guise of penetration testing in a likely lead-up to a ransomware scheme.

"With FIN7's latest fake company, the criminal group leveraged true, publicly available information from various legitimate cybersecurity companies to create a thin veil of legitimacy around Bastion Secure," Recorded Future's Gemini Advisory unit said in a report.

"FIN7 is adopting disinformation tactics so that if a potential hire or interested party were to fact check Bastion Secure, then a cursory search on Google would return 'true' information for companies with a similar name or industry to FIN7's Bastion Secure."

 

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Kindred Group in brief

Kindred Group is one of the world’s leading online gambling operators with business across Europe, US and Australia, offering 30 million customers across 9 brands a great form of entertainment in a safe, fair and sustainable environment. The company, which employs about 1,600 people, is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm Large Cap and is a member of the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) and founding member of IBIA (Sports Betting Integrity Association). Kindred Group is audited and certified by eCOGRA for compliance with the 2014 EU Recommendation on Consumer Protection and Responsible Gambling (2014/478/EU). Read more on www.kindredgroup.com.