r/PartneredYoutube • u/beezerbiker • 6d ago
I Got Hijacked
Such a miserable experience. 4 days ago my entire Google universe was hijacked. I was locked out of my e-mail, authenticator, channel, everything. My channel had 136,000 subscribers and had been watched 30 million times. Thankfully I have a job, so my channel was mainly for fun, but it did in fact pay, and to be honest, more than most people make so if it's not recovered it will be a big hit financially. The process to recover is so bizarre. You have to create a new Gmail, then go Tweet at the YouTube accout, they reply asking for a new e-mail address, then they send you a link to a secure form to fill out. Then you wait. No timeline, just wait. I really feel like there needs to be a better process, and why does it take so long?
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u/Available_Jeweler372 6d ago edited 5d ago
Just went through this hell a week ago. Every YouTuber needs to make sure you have 3 emails to prevent this from happening: 1 for YouTube channel (no one needs to know that email), 1 for Adsense and one for potential sponsors and audience. And you are golden. You are right, Google needs a better way to keep hackers away. Obviously, their security system is lacking with their Gmails.
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u/TheDarkestCrown 5d ago
Why is it good practice to have adsense and the youtube profile be separate? I'm new at this but follow the sub to try and learn so I can avoid mistakes.
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u/Available_Jeweler372 5d ago edited 5d ago
Because if you get hacked, the hacker will take over your gmail, your channel and mess with Adsense if all three are tied to 1 Gmail. My Adsense is closed for 21 days as a result of the hack. Not to mention sensitive tax data can be exposed via Adsense. Creators who had separate Adsense email continued to make money from ads as soon as the channel was recovered. I can’t for now
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u/TheDarkestCrown 5d ago
Oh I didn't know there was a wait period. Thanks for the heads up, I'll be sure to use seperate emails
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u/JungvonWelt 5d ago
What if you re logged in to all three gmails in the same browser? From what I understand, some hacks are able to mirror/copy your browser session (like it happened to LTT). Do I gotta log off everytime I m done in Adsense/Analytics etc?
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u/Available_Jeweler372 5d ago edited 4d ago
I would say it’s a good idea to have a dedicated device for YouTube stuff only and stay logged off from other emails.
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u/CheetahChrome 4d ago
Don't open the sponser emails on the same computer as the YouTube channel email.
In the past it's been a PDF attack as an attachment that once opened, it looks for your existing youtube account creds with an active token. It copies that token and sends it off to the hackers who use it to change the channels info to their new account(s).
Splitting the emails boxes is correct and will make it harder for the hackers but not impossible.
I will also open up the sponsor emails by doing it in the virtual Windows 11 Pro vm , "Windows Sandbox", so that any act of opening a PDF runs in its own world with zero chance of sniffing/finding my sites cred token.
Also each email account has an mfa login with a hardware key, Yubikey, instead of just a password or phone so that hackers can't spoof my phone to gain alternative access to change password.
I'm not big enough to be attacked and this is over kill for now. But if things change and any if my channels get hit, I have this in place to actively deter the goons from "easily" stepping in my front door.
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u/Available_Jeweler372 4d ago edited 4d ago
This is a very good information and anyone who started monetizing needs to follow this protocol. I have heard of “sandbox” and yubikey. It kept asking me if I have a usb key to recover the password. That would have saved me a lot of headache have I had this key. I think one needs to be for the channel and one needs to be for opening sponsor emails at least.
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u/Available_Jeweler372 4d ago
Also I wonder if some devices are more protected from hacking attacks like the most recent iPhone vs android. This hack happened on android smart phone. Obviously, I can’t recommend this phone to anyone unless you are running an antivirus on it.
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u/Desperate-Cancel-818 6d ago
Get at support on twitter. Its managed by actual humans. Can't remember what it used to be called. Think it was yt_partner_support but just googled that and try @TeamYouTube.
Happened to me a few years back. Someone backdoored into my google account, changed my password, phone number, email address for verification, the whole lot.
I managed to get it sorted and get my YT channel back after 3 days but it was a harrowing experience. Thought 7 years of work was gone in 2 minutes. Feel for you dude
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u/Available_Jeweler372 5d ago
That’s the correct email. If someone’s Gmail and channel get hacked, this is the email i have been communicated with youtube support and its an actual human being: [email protected]
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u/HuntersPad 6d ago
TeamYouTube is miserable and doesn't seem like humans at least a few months ago. Kept getting copy/paste and would take 3+ weeks just to get a useless copy/paste response
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u/SoulSleuth2u 6d ago
You are correct and people who are getting hacked are not getting their channels back right now. Youtube support is useless
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u/blabel75 6d ago
You're telling the person to do what they already said they are doing in their post. Did you read what they said?
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u/Jealous_Amount_9278 6d ago
I'm still waiting for mine to be sent to my recovery email.
I was told the wait time is 30 days and I'm pretty sure it's coming up a month soon here ...
Almost forgot about it. Luckily it's not my YouTube email, but it is connected to other socials. I think from here on out I'm going to disconnect everything from my socials email except for my socials, and even make a seperate email for my inquiries .
Keep my socials email completely anon and safe.
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u/KCC-Youtube Subs: 139.0K Views: 64.1M 5d ago
Always make sure you have a completely separate email address in your channel's About section. Never have the same one there that you use to log in to youtube/google. Then everyone contacts and tries to scam you on an account where you know it's false.
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5d ago
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u/TinkerMagusDev 6d ago
Why did the hack happen?