(PSA) A warning to YouTube creators, scammers have worked out an almost fool proof method of phishing your account

[Master Disaster]

This is blowing up on YouTube ATM, I'll begin with a tweet that should show just how sophisticated this scam is...

 

Essentially the scammers have worked out a method of sending people emails that are originating from a genuine Google domain making them indistinguishable from authentic Google emails.

 

Details are a bit thin ATM but it seems as though the scammers are bouncing the emails through Google Chat and when they arrive in your inbox they look like they've come from Google (because they basically have). Then once you click the link provided it actually opens a session in Google Chat making it seem even more believable that you're really talking to Google.

 

Some Ordinary Gamers also received the email and was in the process of chatting to the scammers when he noticed the email of the person he was chatting to had an @account-support.com domain on their email.

 

If you receive an email from Google saying

Quote

....you have multiple Ad Sense accounts and that you must talk to Google support otherwise your account will be deleted....

its a scam. Ignore it.

 

Source -

 

 

 

EDIT ; 

 

looks like he missed the scammer's domain when chatting with him ;
 

 

Screenshot in case the Tweet get deleted ;
 

Spoiler

 

[Arika]

Holy shit, Jim Browning got hit? that must be some solid gold standard social engineering.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Arika S said:

Holy shit, Jim Browning got hit? that must be some solid gold standard social engineering.

IKR

[RejZoR]

And why would Google/Youtube ask you to delete the account yourself when they can literally do that directly since they are the people who provide this service? You have to really be monumentally stupid to do it yourself. My first question would be WHY?! and after that "If I'm in any violation, then do it yourself lol, you are the service provider and you have the control". People really are naive.

[cacoe]

It's preying on every youtubers biggest dreads, potential loss of channel, potential loss of revenue.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, RejZoR said:

And why would Google/Youtube ask you to delete the account yourself when they can literally do that directly since they are the people who provide this service? You have to really be monumentally stupid to do it yourself. My first question would be WHY?! and after that "If I'm in any violation, then do it yourself lol, you are the service provider and you have the control". People really are naive.

Did you not see the Tweet? YouTubes biggest scam smasher was taken by the scam, and he's a doctor of computer science.

[cacoe]

When Jim Browning gets scammed, anyone would have fallen for it.

Edited July 28, 2021 by wkdpaul
cleanup

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, cacoe said:

When Jim Browning gets scammed, anyone would have fallen for it.

I have to imagine they targeted him early on deliberately. Once word spreads the attack vector closes, taking out big names early on is a good strategy.

[cacoe]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I have to imagine they targeted him early on deliberately. Once word spreads the attack vector closes, taking out big names early on is a good strategy.

You really have to give him credit for coming out with this info publicly considering.

 

Wonder what the long game was, getting people to delete their YouTube channels isn't profitable, this is stage one. Maybe stage 2 was pay a fee to reactivate the channel or something?

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, cacoe said:

You really have to give him credit for coming out with this info publicly considering.

Everyone has a bad day at least once, might as well stop others from having the same bad day. On any other day it may well have been that he wouldn't have gone through with deleting the channel.

 

I would imagine the conversation between himself and the scammer wasn't extremely short and he "just did it", 100% he was targeted and had very good information used to help fool him.

[da na]

I've actually gotten things like this. It was a few hours after I got a copyright claim for using music that I made in my videos so I was a bit on edge. At the time I only had like 4 videos and 2 subscribers so I figured that it was fake, also the domain address that it came from was something like youtube-support@googIe.com, the L in google was an uppercase i most likely. There were many spelling mistakes in it as well, it just looked fake all around. This seems much more sophisticated though.

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, cacoe said:

You really have to give him credit for coming out with this info publicly considering.

Not reporting that you've been scammed out of shame for falling for it only helps the scammers get away with it and scam other victims.

 

 

Me: Oooo I wonder if Jim Browning has posted a video about this yet, can't wait to see what he says about falling for this

Youtube: Jim Browning? I've never met this man before in my life

Me: Oh... Right... Wow...

[Avocado Diaboli]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Did you not see the Tweet? YouTubes biggest scam smasher was taken by the scam, and he's a doctor of computer science.

A bunch of legitimate scientists were duped into appearing in a geocentrist documentary. Academic credentials are not a bulletproof shield to not end up doing monumentally stupid things. It's good of him to admit his mistake and use that as a cautionary tale that nobody is safe from this stuff 100% of the time, but to appeal to his apparent authority and therefore portray this scam attempt as any more ambitious or less of an obvious scam is a bit disingenuous.

[Zodiark1593]

6 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I have to imagine they targeted him early on deliberately. Once word spreads the attack vector closes, taking out big names early on is a good strategy.

Yeah, the criminals kind of derped here in the long term by revealing their hand to Jim Browning of all people. I suppose someone wanted to try to make an example?
 

Thanos: “All that, for a drop of blood…”

[SADS]

I always think that people that fall for these are a bit naieve.... But when i saw that the tweet was from Jim Browning, I begin to wonder if anyone is safe.

 

As people have mentioned already, he's very savvy with scams and computer tech, so for this to happen to him is quite shocking.

I was wondering where his content had gone recently as it often comes up suggested to me.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, Spotty said:

Me: Oooo I wonder if Jim Browning has posted a video about this yet, can't wait to see what he says about falling for this

Youtube: Jim Browning? I've never met this man before in my life

Me: Oh... Right... Wow...

hahahaha 

[cacoe]

Just now, Spotty said:

Not reporting that you've been scammed out of shame for falling for it only helps the scammers get away with it and scam other victims.

 

 

Me: Oooo I wonder if Jim Browning has posted a video about this yet, can't wait to see what he says about falling for this

Youtube: Jim Browning? I've never met this man before in my life

Me: Oh... Right... Wow...

I'm just saying kudos for coming out with it, considering he has a brand to maintain. In my eyes (probably everyone's) it strengthens his brand.

[Arika]

10 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

but to appeal to his apparent authority and therefore portray this scam attempt as any more ambitious or less of an obvious scam is a bit disingenuous.

And this tells me you don't actually know what Jim Browning does...

[cacoe]

4 minutes ago, Arika S said:

And this tells me know don't actually know what Jim Browning does...

He provides insight and investigates scams on his youtube channel. It's quite good content........ when it's back up lol

[Quackers101]

another reason to hate emails and email services...

Giving shady links from brands or verification reasons.

not wanting to give clear view of who you are talking with or hiding important information.

 

Also noooo, not jim!!

I guess he didn't think as an older youtube creator or message of this post, rather thinking "this is coming from the real source? likely has to do as they say then".

[Arika]

2 minutes ago, cacoe said:

He provides insight and investigates scams on his youtube channel. It's quite good content........ when it's back up lol

oh i know, i derped on the words. edited.

[cacoe]

8 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

another reason to hate emails and email services...

Giving shady links from brands or verification reasons.

not wanting to give clear view of who you are talking with or hiding important information.

 

Also noooo, not jim!!

I guess he didn't think as an older youtube creator or message of this post, rather thinking "this is coming from the real source? likely has to do as they say then".

Well imo, two main things to check on an email to check it's legit - the domain on the sender's email address which appeared to be legit, also any urls. Is there much else to go by really? (other than the actual contents of the email which can raise flags, poor english for example, bad formatting.)

[Mark Kaine]

I dont read my emails so now what?

 

 

[Kilrah]

1 hour ago, cacoe said:

Well imo, two main things to check on an email to check it's legit - the domain on the sender's email address which appeared to be legit, also any urls. Is there much else to go by really? (other than the actual contents of the email which can raise flags, poor english for example, bad formatting.)

Not really, and as seen here some can go to great lengths to make those appear legit. Good recent video on the topic:

 

  

1 hour ago, cacoe said:

Wonder what the long game was, getting people to delete their YouTube channels isn't profitable

In this case I wouldn't be surprised if it was targeted, some of the scammers he bonked in the past teaming up and going for retaliation. He's hurting their "business" after all so there's definitely a financial incentive to go after him. Plus a pride one since his whole schtick is "I scammed the scammers", I'd imagine wanting to do the same to him must be pretty high on the list for some people and just managing to do it would be enough of a reward already.  

[Avocado Diaboli]

30 minutes ago, Arika S said:

And this tells me you don't actually know what Jim Browning does...

Apparently, he falls for scams where people tell him "Dude, you need to, like, totally delete your YouTube channel, right now. Trust me, I'm from Google." This is obviously paraphrased nonsense, but essentially what he describes. He was convinced by someone to delete his channel. He didn't mention what it took to delete it, but what possible explanation would even convince you to do something like that?

 

I know what Browning does, but you clearly didn't understand what the point of my comment was, which was that appealing to authority doesn't absolve him in this case from having fallen for an obvious scam. Just because he exposes scammers doesn't somehow make this any less stupid on his part and no doctorate is going to change that.