YouTube Warns Creators an AI-Generated Video of Its CEO is Being Used For Phishing Scams

An anonymous reader shares a report: YouTube is warning creators about a new phishing scam that attempts to lure victims using an AI-generated video of its CEO Neal Mohan. The fake video has been shared privately with users and claims YouTube is making changes to its monetization policy in an attempt to steal their credentials, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

"YouTube and its employees will never attempt to contact you or share information through a private video," YouTube says. "If a video is shared privately with you claiming to be from YouTube, the video is a phishing scam." In recent weeks, there have been reports floating around Reddit about scams similar to the one described by YouTube.

I'll bet it didn't

[BoogieChile]

> In both of these cases, the email came from [e-mail].

Only if you only looked at the "From:" field and none of the other things that all said "no, it didn't"

Re: I'll bet it didn't

[vbdasc]

Well, not everyone is an E-mail expert.

Re:

[Askmum]

A bit strange that so many e-mail programs still rely solely on the From: field and won't even give a warning when it is inconcistent with the rest of the headers.

Re:

[gweihir]

They cannot. Any such "inconsistency" may be entirely legitimate. Of course, often it is not, but it takes real intelligence and understanding of context to determine that.

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

Any such "inconsistency" may be entirely legitimate.

That's why e-mail programs should only warn about this, rather then block such mails altogether. And many actually do, using constructs such as "Sent by [e-mail] on behalf of [e-mail]", if envelope From and header From are different.

Re:

[gweihir]

And then, many users do not understand the warning and are either paranoid or just ignore it.

Hence, at this time, this is not a problem technology will solve and the users will not either.

Re:

[gweihir]

Well, not everyone is an E-mail expert.

Indeed. And most computer and Internet tech is very much not ready to be used securely by regular people.

Filled with AI scams

[SuperDre]

Youtube is full of AI generated deepfakes/scams. Last night of the 8 'livestreams' of Starship flight 8 (which was scrubbed in the end) 5 of them were scams with showing Musk promoting some digital scamcoin as if it was during a spaceX presentation .

Re: Filled with AI scams

[bjoast]

This is why removing the public dislike count on videos was a terrible move. No clear signal to the viewer that a video or stream could be bad. The people running Youtube truly are stupid.

Re:

[gweihir]

The people running Youtube truly are stupid.

Naa. Mostly they are greedy assholes that do not give a damn about their users and creators.

Re: Filled with AI scams

[vbdasc]

We're entering a brave new scam-dominated world. Everyone must create their own strategies for dealing with the problem. If you can't, just exit the digital world. If you get scammed, it's your own fault (and fault of the scammer, but it doesn't matter) and you need to bear the consequences.

Re:

[gweihir]

Sad as it is, that may be the case. Scams are getting more and ore profitable, due to crapcoins being usable for money-laundering in arbitrary heights. The former US administration tried to stop this with some success, but I guess the current one will just go with the flow as the people now in charge are in on the scams or actually are doing them.

Re:

[gweihir]

Videos with Musk promoting some scamcoin are fake? I though that is what he does these days, when he is not busy destroying the US administration.

You can't report fake videos on YouTube

[Bender Unit 22]

You can report videos on YouTube but there are no option for fake content. I have seen multiple videos with fake voices and random b-roll but you can't report it.

Re: You can't report fake videos on YouTube

[newcastlejon]

Reporting would be a waste of time. I've reported scam ads until I'm blue in the face. They don't get taken down.