Linus got hacked!?!?!? - Honest Answers Episode 3
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,781 words · ~8 min read
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minus Tech tips was hacked they were using a simple password and their
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website's database was dumped you can buy it for five
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bucks only one of those four rumors is true and even then only in a fairly
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loose sense more on that later welcome
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to an impromptu episode of honest answers that I'm calling WTF is going on
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over there I'll be addressing the abrupt shift in branding of the atlus tech
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Twitter handle the recent Banning of our Amazon Associates account and of course
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the
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hack the AKG k7xx headphones are back on
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mass drop check out my review of them up here and check out the drop at the link
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in the video description so on June 14th 2016 Amazon sent me an email warning me
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that my Amazon Associates account was not in compliance with the operating
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agreement specifically the part where Associates are not permitted to disclose
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how their referral fees will be used I was instructed to make any and all
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necessary modifications to my site and processes within five business days and
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notify them when I was done one small problem my call out for Amazon was baked
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into the tail end of nearly 500 Linus
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Tech tips videos dating back a couple of years with no way at least that I was
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aware of to alter previous L uploaded YouTube videos my efforts to reach
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anyone by phone or by email basically
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resulted in a second email to which there was no way for me to even reply 3
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Days Later informing me that my business model wasn't a good fit for the program
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and that my account had been terminated effective immediately long story short
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I'm not revealing names so they don't get flooded with requests to help with
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Amazon Associates issues but this right now is a huge shout out to some industry
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folks who helped me get in touch giving me an opportunity to discuss the
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situation and plead my case over the phone on June 22nd you guys rock the
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result though was not as some have speculated a green light to reactivate
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our account but rather an opportunity to reapply for a new account which has been
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approved so in summary our old Associates ID and all the tracked links
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under our old non-compliant videos are inactive though we are pursuing an
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interesting method that we could use to update those old videos and reactivate
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the associated links under the new tracking ID so we'll see how that goes
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but in the meantime because as many of you who watched how does LMG make money
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no the Amazon Associates program has been a significant source of our Revenue
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we are coming back strong speaking of which prime Day is coming up so you
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might want to go shop on Amazon or sign up for a Prime Membership using the Link
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in our description let's move on to the compromised at linch Twitter handle
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generally speaking we don't acknowledge
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attacks on our persons or business for what I'd hope are pretty obvious reasons
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but in this case it's part of a much larger problem that's affecting other
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YouTubers and even more importantly could also affect you the manner in
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which the lineus tech Twitter handle and my personal Hotmail and Gmail then by
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extension my domain name register account were compromised had almost
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nothing to do with poor security practices on our part yes my registar
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login email account should not have been a personal one that was just a legacy
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thing from before I even registered a corporate domain name and that has since
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been rectified along with some other new security measures that again I hope you
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can understand this I won't be discussing publicly but other than that
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there was nothing I could have done to prevent this an individual right now
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it's not clear whether it was over the phone or by actually walking into a
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physical location committed identity fraud and was able to convince Bell
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Canada to activate a SIM card in my name
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which deactivated my own SIM card and
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began immediately forwarding all phone calls and text messages to that
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individual's phone my mother-in-law's first reaction when I told her about
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this was did they place any longdistance phone calls different generation right
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so I explained to her and I guess in recounting the story also you that it's
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much more serious than that with access to my incoming calls and texts this
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person can break into any account where
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theoretically SMS account verification
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acts as a a pseudo physical authentication Factor if you want more
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information about multiactor authentication check out this video and
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in some cases it can even act as a
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single authentication factor for loss
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password requests now as a rule I don't do
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YouTube drama go subscribe to h3h3 Productions or something if you're into
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that stuff I'll stay focused on Tech but even inside my bubble I've managed to
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catch wind of similar attacks being used on Boogie and leafy with the same group
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claiming responsibility for stealing Lily sing's account and a handful of
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others so I felt the need to address it fortunately for us even though I was in
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the middle of an onlocation video shoot picking blueberries of all things when
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my cell phone service turned off which also made it harder for me to notice the
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army of loyal followers who were messaging me to inform me of the problem
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thank you very much guys Nick and Ivonne great work to them too very quickly
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figured out the method of attack deactivated my Mobile account
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deactivated our Twitter account and called me back into the office to start
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locking everything down the highjackers never got into the YouTube channels so
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all they pretty much managed to do was vandalize my Twitter and use our regist
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our dashboard to redirect website traffic from Linus tips.com and incoming
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mail heading to the at Linus medag group.com domain both of which were
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happening for under an hour and probably are where the worries about our Forum
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users data comes from rest easy this was
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a simple social engineering exploit and they were nowhere near any of our
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servers let alone harvesting any data from them however even if this is a a
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social engineering trick and it has to be executed on a one by one basis
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because this method of attack has been demonstrated to be so successful I feel
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like it's important to recommend to our viewers that they do a security audit
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ensuring that their accounts do not have a single point of entry including
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through their phone and that they call their provider to check who is
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authorized to make changes to the account and what the process is for
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validating that person's identity those
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guys aren't going to understand how serious this problem is until it starts
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increasing their call volumes and affecting their bottom
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lines anyway make lemons out of lemonade
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right since I had to reset my profile picture anyhow I figured it was as good
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a time as any to finally make the transition the at Linus Tech Twitter
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handle moving forward will be the official Twitter for the Linus Tech tips
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video publication and I will be starting a new personal Twitter account lus G
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Sebastian a similar transition will likely occur on Instagram very shortly
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the reason for this being that I feel like I am underutilizing the huge team
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of social media experts here at lus Media Group and that by having everyone
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posting content and replies to these accounts we can provide you guys with
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much more behind the scenes more timely updates and more sexy shots of products
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and or dentist last order of business
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congratulations to the Techquickie team which throughout its history has
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involved every single member of the company but currently is mostly the John
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and Dennis show with me and Luke hosting and also thanks to all of you for your
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support they just broke a million subscribers making us double gold
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Channel Super Fun next right well might take a while but it's gonna happen well
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that's probably going to be a while but in the meantime if you have to fix any
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Electronics ifixit.com is your goto
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place from their 19,000 free step-by-step repair guides to their huge
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inventory of replacement parts to their tools with lifetime warranties I fix it
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has got your repair needs covered we use their stuff all the time but my go-to is
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the prot te tool kit which has actually been upgraded in the time that we have
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been advertising for it and also since I bought my first one over 3 years ago so
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instead of 54 bits it includes 64 bits
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you know 64-bit am I right it's like better more RAM no there's no RAM in it
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but there's all kinds of stuff like their redesigned screwdriver their Flex
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extension their ESD tweezers including a pair of reverse tweezers they plastic
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opening tools they suction cups the metal spudgers the Jimmy Pride tool and
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you've got an ESD bracelet that you can wear to make sure you're not zapping the
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components you're working at it's priced at$ 69.95 and the best part is that you
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can save five bucks just by using our offer code which is linked in the video
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description so that's code Linus in the checkout to save $5 on any purchase of
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$10 or more so thanks for watching guys
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if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit
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that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured at
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Amazon in the video description or maybe even a Prime Membership I think that's
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actually the only thing I mentioned in this video also linked in the
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description is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community Forum which you should toally
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join now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to
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watch next so click that little button in the top right corner to check out the
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last episode of honest answers where I talk about how exactly it is that lonus
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Media Group makes money