TL;DR Breakdown

• HiiiKey’s YouTube used for BTC/ETH scam
• Hackers make over $70,000

Crypto hackers have again announced their presence in what can be called the first crypto scam of year 2021. This time around, the scammers played a simple game of nabbing a celebrity’s YouTube handle for its amount of subscribers to operate a simple giveaway scam through a Livestream (FAKE).

HiiiKey, an American rapper, was the victim. After tricking him into giving them his credentials through a long chain of emails, the crypto hackers laid siege to his YouTube page.

The celebrity YouTube’s page with 249,000 subscribers was filled with crypto contents, and they renamed the page to {ETHEREUM FUND}. They also deleted all of Hiiikey’s previously uploaded videos.

The only proof left to know the page belongs to the 23-year-old celebrity are details on the about tab of the page, which links to his other social media channels.

What crypto hackers did with Hiiikey’s Youtube

After the hackers gained control of the celebrity’s page, they ran a livestream on January 7 for hours that promoted a Bitcoin and Ethereum giveaway scam. The Livestream was on for an extended period, with over 50,000 viewers watching.

The stream was a video of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin talking about the Beacon Chain launch and the transition to Ethereum 2.0 before December 2020.

After Buterin’s interview, the video contained text promoting a giveaway of 40,000 ETH and 3000 BTC.

Hackers hit the jackpot again, made over $70,000

After the video, a link on the page landed viewers to another page where they can deposit ETH or BTC. They were promised several juicy returns on their stakes, which must be sent to specific addresses.

Reportedly, a check on Etherscan with the ETH address the crypto hacker used reveals that 39.1 ETH worth around $47,260 on January 7 had been received. On the other hand, the BTC address received just over 0.6 BTC, which is currently around $22,000.

More checks on other addresses show that the scammers have garnered more than $100,000.

HiiiKey has not said anything about the hack, while Vitalik Buterin, whose video was used, has also not announced he was doing any crypto giveaways.