YouTube Channel 'Tech Support Scams' Taken Offline By Tech Support Scam (theregister.com) 55
The Tech Support Scams YouTube channel, operated by host and creator Jim Browning, was deleted after a tech support scam convinced Browning that the only way to secure his account was to delete it. The Register reports: "So to prove that anyone can be scammed," Browning announced via Twitter following the attack, "I was convinced to delete my YouTube channel because I was convinced I was talking [to YouTube] support. I never lost control of the channel, but the sneaky s**t managed to get me to delete the channel. Hope to recover soon." To fool Browning, the ruse must have been convincing: "I track down the people who scam others on the Internet," he writes on his Patreon page. "This is usually those 'tech support' call frauds using phone calls or pop-ups. I explain what I do by guiding others in how to recognize a scam and, more importantly, how to turn the tables on scammers by tracking them down."
Browning has made a name for himself with self-described "scam baiting" videos, in which he sets up honeypot systems and pretends to fall for scams in which supposed support staffers need remote access to fix a problem or remove a virus -- in reality scouring the hard drive for sensitive files or planting malware of their own. "I am hoping that YouTube Support can recover the situation by 29th July," Browning wrote in a Patreon update, "and I can get the channel back, but they've not promised anything as yet. I just hope it is recoverable."
Whether Browning is able to recover the account, and the 3.28 million subscribers he had gathered over his career as a scam-baiter, he's hoping to turn his misfortune into another lesson. "I will make a video on how all of this went down," he pledged, "but suffice to say, it was pretty convincing until the very end."
Browning has made a name for himself with self-described "scam baiting" videos, in which he sets up honeypot systems and pretends to fall for scams in which supposed support staffers need remote access to fix a problem or remove a virus -- in reality scouring the hard drive for sensitive files or planting malware of their own. "I am hoping that YouTube Support can recover the situation by 29th July," Browning wrote in a Patreon update, "and I can get the channel back, but they've not promised anything as yet. I just hope it is recoverable."
Whether Browning is able to recover the account, and the 3.28 million subscribers he had gathered over his career as a scam-baiter, he's hoping to turn his misfortune into another lesson. "I will make a video on how all of this went down," he pledged, "but suffice to say, it was pretty convincing until the very end."
Go for it (Score:2)
Well, that's a bummer. I hope he can completely dox whoever scammed him, very publicly.
Playing the odds. (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether Browning is able to recover the account, and the 3.28 million subscribers he had gathered over his career as a scam-baiter, he's hoping to turn his misfortune into another lesson. "I will make a video on how all of this went down," he pledged, "but suffice to say, it was pretty convincing until the very end."
If it can happen to him it can happen to anyone.
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I also learned from those long-gone, but somehow still present, days of unrestricted SMTP warfare, (and sending a number of 'support@microsoft.com' prank messages to family and friends) to check both the 'from' and 'reply-to' fields, and go far, far out of my way to avoid mail clients that won't serve up full hea
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This, combined with awareness of how communication takes place between people I work with, usually makes these fairly transparent. It is definitely much easier, of course, when the entire company lives within a 50 mile radius, and multiple nigh
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Re:Playing the odds. (Score:4)
I suppose the takeaway (laden with opinion, naturally) is that e-mail, in its present state, is not particularly good for real-time communication, and this should be fairly obvious to anyone who has used it. As a result, when an attempt is made to use it as such (the "act now or (i) die but keep it hush hush" type crap mentioned by the parent post), it should be viewed as inherently suspicious, and warranting additional scrutiny; finally, i'm of the opinion that sudden, unexplained, and uncharacteristic requests for silence on a further unexplained matter should be brought to the attention of higher-ups.
I work in infosec and part of my duties involve training our users on security practices. This is actually one of the lessons I teach. Email is an inherently slow form of communication so any email that wants you to act with urgency or else should be considered suspicious until proven innocent. We provide our staff with multiple forms of communication and if something is truly urgent then a phone call, IM or meeting in person is preferred. That obviously doesn't help with scams over the phone or through IM but email is still by far the most common vector and I reckon it will remain to be.
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I work in infosec and part of my duties involve training our users on security practices. This is actually one of the lessons I teach. Email is an inherently slow form of communication so any email that wants you to act with urgency or else should be considered suspicious until proven innocent. We provide our staff with multiple forms of communication and if something is truly urgent then a phone call, IM or meeting in person is preferred. That obviously doesn't help with scams over the phone or through IM but email is still by far the most common vector and I reckon it will remain to be.
From a scammer's standpoint email is good because you can hit multiple targets and only need one nibble to try to hook someone.
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I've had to deal with the fallout of people falling for some really low effort attempts before. Something to the effect of:
From: randomfakeaccount@gmail.com
Hey, company VP here, can you update my direct deposit to this bank account number and confirm it will take effect next paycheck?
Thanks,
totally company VP and not a scam.
One would think that such a lazy con would fail but some people are just not self aware enough to register it. The shotgun approach to phishing is definitely valid and effective.
Re:Nope (Score:1)
This is not self-awareness. This is awareness. But, if you were more self-aware you would've realized this.
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Not surprised. Spear phishing is actually a very effective tactic, and it's likely what Jim Browning got.
Basically, instead of a phishing attack which tries to sucker in a few people through sheer numbers (send out a billion emails, mayb
Re:Playing the odds. (Score:5, Funny)
If it can happen to him it can happen to anyone.
If Jesus himself appeared with a halo and told me to delete files, I would ask for two factor authentication.
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What if they showed up with a Halo Array?
https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/H... [fandom.com]
watch what you wish for (Score:2)
I've had similar experiences with spammers, the more you get them shut down the more they show up.
Re:watch what you wish for (Score:5, Funny)
I like it when people play mind games with scammer/spammers. The best is when it seems like you are very close to saying "yes", then delay based on some silly concern. Gives them a taste of their own medicine.
You: "Oh wait, before I submit payment info, I have one last question. Are you JSTR certified?"
Scammer: "Uh, ...yes, we are certified. You have my word!"
(You hear typing in the background because scammer is googling it.)
You: "Great, can you give me your certification number? All members have a cert number."
Scmr: "Uh, 738923."
You: "That's funny, it says 'invalid number' when I check on their website."
Scmr: "Maybe it's the wrong site, can you give the URL you are using?"
You: "JSTR.org"
Scmr: "I'm getting a site not found error, are you sure it's right?"
You: "Oh wait, it's JSTR!.org, with an exclamation mark. Sorry about that."
Scmr: "Hmm, my browser doesn't like exclamation marks."
You: "It works in Firefox, do you have Firefox?"
Scmr: "No, I just have Chrome."
You: "I'll wait while you install Firefox. I have to take a shit anyhow..."
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This guy was up to some next level stuff. He managed to trick the scammers into installing malware on their machines, giving him access to their PCs, sending him free stuff... He also liked to do a prank where he would open a browser window to an article about tech support scams with a photo of the office where the guy worked, complete with him and his colleagues waving to the camera.
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+10 ROTFLMAO
Re:watch what you wish for (Score:5, Informative)
If they're Indian just ask if their mother knows that they steal for a living. That really sets them off.
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If they're Indian just ask if their mother knows that they steal for a living. That really sets them off.
So true! That kind of question is sure to generate some swearing!
I've decided, though, that it might be more productive to ask questions like "Why don't you try a line of work which doesn't involve ripping people off?" I'm not saying that a lighted question will surely generate self-reflection, but it seems more likely than a question which immediately enrages them.
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"getting them shut down" is not the same as "clicking unsubscribe", genius. Such a great comment you had there, no wonder you won't put your fake name on it.
"Hi, this is Microsoft, and we are calling (Score:1)
to help you for free."
Anyone who is familiar with Microsoft will instantly recognize this as a scam. You are more likely to get a same-day appointment at the DMV than get ahold of Microsoft support.
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Actually, you CAN get calls from Microsoft. You just have to be paying those crazy astronomical rates for Visual Studio subscriptions (formerly MSDN subscriptions where they shipped out DVDs every month). They'll call you around the time your subscription is about to expire because they want that sweet, sweet $$$$ to keep flowing (apparently now just $1,200 to $6,000 for the first year...per user).
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Absolutely inexcusable for this guy to have fallen for this.
Notice that he provides no details about anything. Why was he talking to "YouTube Support" in the first place? What problem could he possibly be having where deleting everything is the only possible fix?
Not to mention the most obvious - Google/YouTube is famous for providing zero customer support. Anyone who thinks they are talking to "YouTube Support" is . . . . not very bright.
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The scam should have been obvious (Score:5, Funny)
The first indication that he was being scammed should have been the fact that he actually spoke to a YouTube tech support person on the phone.
I mean .... I didn't think such a thing was even humanly possible.
If you have a few million subscribers (Score:2)
Once you get about a billion views, you're valuable to YouTube. ..."
They do have support staff. It's simply not economical to pay support staff to help each person who is having trouble finding the video they were looking for. More to the point, people who want more information about the content of the video - "I was watching the gardening video and I wondered if you could tell me what kind of fertilizer
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I'd bet once you get millions of followers and billions of views, you get a different level of support and handling than grandma who posts videos from piano recitals.
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He's probably a typical Youtube checkmark who's high on his own fumes and thinks "well, of course they'd contact ME personally - I'm important".
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Wait. What? (Score:1)
The Tech Support Scams YouTube channel, operated by host and creator Jim Browning, was deleted after a tech support scam convinced Browning that the only way to secure his account was to delete it.
Secure an account by deleting it?
Is that like securing money by burning it?
Ok, sure, if the thing isn't there then technically no one can take it, therefore it's secure. But still.... he fell for that?
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Delete the System32 folder. It's the only way to be sure.
Re:Wait. What? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Tech Support Scams YouTube channel, operated by host and creator Jim Browning, was deleted after a tech support scam convinced Browning that the only way to secure his account was to delete it.
Secure an account by deleting it?
Sure, tell him something like "Your channel is cross-linked to two different gmail accounts. We can't remove the other owner, but if you delete your channel, we can restore it so it is only linked to your account. The channel should only be down for three minutes while we restore from our near-line backup. The backup will still contain all the comments, ad links, and followers it currently has."
I'm sure they told him deleting the account was fully reversible and the quickest solution to their made-up problem.
This is hilarious. (Score:1)
I watch his vids and wondered if someone would come after him at some stage. Just crazy.
Is this real? (Score:2)
Do we know for sure that this is the real Jim Browning claiming to have been scammed? Maybe a scammer got his accounts!
Alternatively, do we know for sure that Jim Browning is not trying to scam us? That he is not pretending that he lost his accounts? After all the dark side is tempting and he's been playing with it for a long time!
Publicity stunt? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like a publicity stunt to me. I'd never heard about his channel until now, so it's obviously working very well. Especially since he gave a specific date that the channel "may" be back. He'll just make it active or public again tomorrow and pick up many more followers (the channel actually sounds interesting to me, now that I've heard about it).
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wow, the crowd here is not the same anymore.
kitboga IS in the same 'field' as jim and quite a few others. just do a YT search on kitboga and you'll find the atomic shrimp and the rest. most are quite good at what they do and its entertaining to watch for the first few shows. after that, its mostly the same again and again, but its quite interesting to see them if you have not, before.
jim was able to get access to video feeds of call centers and really scare them. that was delicious. he seems like a goo
That email address (Score:2)
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That's what I thought was sad, it was so clearly not youtube support, and they just used the basic windows support scam he always seems so clever about, but with the most obvious not-youtube email address. Jim just had real bad security practices
Not quite so clear. See the screenshot of the email in Jim's video [youtu.be]. While the scammer used the other domain later, his initial phishing email appeared to be from google.com.
lmao (Score:1)
this sounds like a scam... (Score:2)
this sounds like an obvious scam. just not sure who the scammer is.
but nevertheless, great PR.