Security News > 2020 > June > Bitcoin scammers take YouTube channels for a SpaceX ride
Crypto scammers hijacked three YouTube channels to impersonate Elon Musk's SpaceX channel, offering bogus BTC giveaways that earned them nearly USD $150,000 over the course of two days.
According to Bleeping Computer and the reports filed in the BitcoinAbuse database, the scammers took over legitimate YouTube accounts and changed the branding to look like that of Elon Musk's rocket company.
The channels were used to push scams that asked for a small amount of Bitcoin in exchange for double their money back.
If you're a scammer looking to fleece a crowd of loyal followers to pitch one of these scams to - as in, somebody else's loyal followers - the easiest thing to do is take over an existing account.
We don't know how the SpaceX scammers got hold of the YouTube channels they hijacked, but one possibility is that the channel owners reused their credentials somewhere else.