Linus tech tips was hacked
They were using a simple password and their website's database was dumped. You can buy it for five bucks
Only one of those four rumors is true and even then only in a fairly loose sense more on that later
Welcome to an impromptu episode of honest answers that I'm calling
WTF is going on over there
I'll be addressing the abrupt shift in branding of the @LinusTech Twitter handle the recent
banning of our Amazon associates account and of course
the hack
The AKG K7XX headphones are back on Massdrop
check out my review of them up here and check out the drop at the link in the video description
so on June 14th 2016 Amazon sent me an email
Warning me that my Amazon associates account was not in compliance with the operating agreement
Specifically the part where associates are not permitted to disclose how their referral fees will be used
I was instructed to make any and all necessary modifications to my site and
Processes within five business days and notify them when I was done, one small problem
My call-out for Amazon was baked into the tail end of nearly 500 linus tech tips videos dating back a couple of years
With no way at least what I was aware of to alter previously uploaded youtube videos
my efforts to reach anyone by phone or by email
Basically resulted in a second email to which there was no way for me to even reply three days later
Informing me that my business model wasn't a good fit for the program, and that my account had been terminated effective immediately
long Story short, I'm not revealing names
So they don't get flooded with requests to help with Amazon associates issues, but this right now is a huge
Shout-out to some industry folks who helped me get in touch
Giving me an opportunity to discuss the situation and plead my case over the phone on June 22nd
You guys rock. The result though was not as some have speck related a green light to reactivate our account
But rather an opportunity to reapply for a new account which has been approved
So in summary our old associates. ID and all the tracked links under our old
Non-compliant videos are inactive though. We are pursuing an interesting method that we could use to update those old videos and
reactivate the Associated links under the new Tracking ID
So we'll see how that goes but in the meantime
because as many of you who watched how does LMG make money know the Amazon associates program has been a
Significant source of our revenue, we are coming Back strong
Speaking of which prime day is coming up
So you might want to go shop on Amazon or sign up for a prime membership using the link in our description?
Let's move on to the compromised @LinusTech Twitter handle
Generally speaking
We don't acknowledge attacks on our persons or business for what I'd hope are pretty obvious reasons
but in this case
It's part of a much larger problem. That's affecting other
YouTubers and even more importantly could also affect you. The manner in which the LinusTech Twitter handle and my personal hotmail and Gmail
Then by extension my domain name registrar account were compromised had almost
Nothing to do with poor security practices on our part. Yes
My registrar login email account should not have been a personal one
that was just a legacy thing from before I even
Registered a corporate domain name and that has since been rectified along with some other new security measures that again
I hope you can understand this I won't be discussing publicly but other than that
there was nothing I could have done to prevent this an
Individual right now. It's not clear whether it was over the phone or by actually walking into a physical location
Committed identity fraud and was able to convince Bell Canada to activate a sim card in my name which
Deactivated my own sim card and began immediately forwarding all phone calls and text messages to that individuals phone
My mother-in-law's first reaction when I told her about this was did they place any long-distance phone calls
different generation, right
So I explained to her and I guess in recounting the story also you but it's much more serious than that
with access to my incoming calls and texts this person can break into any
account where
theoretically
SMS account verification acts as a a pseudo
physical authentication factor if you want more information about multi-factor authentication
Check out this video and in some cases it can even act as a single
authentication factor for lost password requests
Now as a rule. I don't do youtube drama go subscribe to H3H3 productions or something if you're into that stuff
I'll stay focused on tech, but even inside my bubble
I've managed to catch wind a similar attacks being used on Boogie and
Leafy with the same group claiming responsibility for stealing lily singh's account and a handful of others, so I felt the need to address it
fortunately for us
Even though I was in the middle of an on location video
shoot picking blueberries of all things when my cell phone service turned off
Which also made it harder for me to notice the army of loyal followers who were messaging me to inform me of the problem?
Thank you very much guys. Nick and Yvonne great work too them to very quickly figured out the method of attack
Deactivated my mobile account deactivated our Twitter account and called me back into the office to start locking everything down
The Hijackers never got into the youtube channels so all they pretty much managed to do was vandalize my Twitter and use our
registrar dashboard to redirect website traffic from LinusTechtips.com and
incoming mail heading to the @Linusmediagroup.com domain both of which were happening for under an hour and
Probably are where the worries about our forum users data comes from?
Rest easy this was a simple social engineering exploit
And they were nowhere near any of our servers let alone harvesting any data from them however
Even if this is a social engineering trick
And it has to be executed on a one-By-one basis
Because this method of attack has been demonstrated to be so successful
I feel like it's important to recommend to our viewers that they do a security audit ensuring that their accounts
Do not have a single point of entry
including through their phone and
That they call a provider to check who is authorized to make changes to the account and what the process is for
validating that person's identity
Those guys aren't going to understand how serious this problem is until it starts increasing their call volumes and affecting their bottom lines
anyway, make lemons out of lemonade right since I had to reset my profile picture anyhow I figured it was as good a time as
any to finally make the transition, the @LinusTech Twitter handle moving forward will be the
Official Twitter for the Linus tech tips video publication, and I will be starting a new personal Twitter account
@linusgsebastian a similar transition will likely occur on Instagram very shortly the
reason for this being that I feel like I am under utilizing the huge team of social media experts here at Linus media group and
That by having everyone posting content and replies to these accounts. We can provide you guys with
Much more behind the scenes more timely updates and more sexy shots of products and/or Dennis
last order of business
Congratulations to the Tech Quickie team which throughout its history has involved every single member of the company
But currently is mostly the John and Dennis show with me and Luke hosting and also. Thanks to all of you for your support
They just broke a million subscribers making us double gold
Channel Super Fun next right, well might take a while, but it's gonna happen
Well, that's probably going to be a while, but in the meantime if you have to fix any electronics
ifixit.com is your go-to place from there
19,000 free step-By-step repair guides to their huge inventory of replacement parts to their tools with lifetime
Warranties, ifixit has got your repair needs covered we use their stuff all
The time but my go-to is the pro tech tool kit which has actually been upgraded in the time that we have been
Advertising for it and also since I bought my first one over three years ago, so instead of 54 bits it includes
64 bits you know sixty four-bit am I right. It's like better more RAM
no, there's no RAM in it
But there's all kinds of stuff like their redesigned
Screwdriver, their flex extension, their ESD tweezers including a pair of reverse tweezers, their plastic
opening tools, their suction cups, the metal spudger, the Jimmy pry tool and
You've got an ESD bracelet that you can wear to make sure you're not zapping the components. You're working at it's priced at
It's priced at $69.95 and the best part is that you can save 5 bucks just by using our offer code which is linked in the video description
so that's code linus in the check out to save $5 on any purchase of $10 or
more. So thanks for watching guys, if this video sucked
You know what to do
But if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured at
Amazon in the video description or maybe even a prime membership
I think that's actually the only thing I mentioned in this video also linked in the description is our merch store
Which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should totally join
Now that you're done doing all that stuff
You're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right corner
To check out the last episode of honest answers where I talk about how exactly it is that linus media group makes money