Linus Tech Tips: Who is Linus Tech Tips? YouTube channel hack sparks hilarious reactions online

Linus Tech Tips is a popular tech-based YouTube channel operated by the founder and CEO of Linus Media Group, Linus Gabriel Sebastian. Linus Sebastian’s channel (@LinusTechTips) is one of the largest tech channels on the platform and is known among tech fads for its accessible OC hardware content.

However, the account was hacked on Thursday, March 23, shocking subscribers and followers as they wondered how a highly secure channel could get hacked. YouTube also banned the channel after it was taken over by crypto-hackers who promoted an infamous Bitcoin scam featuring Elon Musk. A video was uploaded with Elon’s photo as the thumbnail and it was titled Linus Tech Tips & Elon Musk Special Crypto Giveaway!

As soon as Sebastian’s account got hacked, it was terminated due to YouTube’s Community Guidelines violations. His other two channels, TechLink and TechQuickie, were also hijacked by presumably the same group of Bitcoin scammers and met with the same outcome.

Linus Sebastian's journey towards Linus Media Group

Born on August 20, 1986, Linus Sebastian is from Vancouver, British Columbia. The Canadian entrepreneur Linus Gabriel Sebastian started his career in tech in 2005, working as a retail sales representative for the computer hardware and software retailer NCIX.

Linus Sebastian (Image via Twitter/@LinusTech)

He worked part-time at NCIX’s Langley retail store while also attending school. Within only a few months of being employed, Linus became NCIX’s top seller of high-end gaming systems. For his efficient performance, he was offered a position at the Richmond head office by the company president and was asked to take care of the company website’s system configurations.

Linus’s hard work was instrumental in NCIX becoming the top-notch seller in Canada’s water cooling parts. This earned him the opportunity to manage core business components such as RAM, SSDs, motherboards, and networking. In 2010, Linus was formally promoted to the role of a business unit manager.

In 2007, he was asked by NCIX to host their technology channel on YouTube, which was created to keep up with competitors like “Newegg”, and “TigerDirect” in a rapidly changing tech market as well as demonstrate their own products.

Linus Sebastian (Image via YouTube/@LinusTechTips)

Initially, the channel did not get many encouraging responses. Sebastian launched his own channel Linus Tech Tips in November 2008 to maintain a modest video-making cost. He did not want to directly associate NCIX with what he deemed, the substandard content that he would produce.

Sebastian left NCIX in 2012 to start a company of his own. One of his colleagues from NCIX, Luke Lafreniere aka SlickPC joined him in his venture. The two, along with Brandon Lee and Edzel Yago, founded Linus Media Group in January 2013.

The internet reacts to Linus Tech Tips getting hacked by crypto scammers

Crypto scams have recently been a growing issue for gaming and tech content creators. In most of these cases, hackers try to take over YouTube channels to peddle fraudulent investments. Some account-hijacking hackers have repeatedly used a known series of fake streams featuring Elon Musk to promote these swindling crypto investments.

As it happens, the recent hacking of Linus Sebastian's channels, especially of Linus Tech Tips, were a shocker for his subscribers. Some of them were even frustrated with all the recent hacks of these tech accounts and YouTube banning those channels as a result. However, many joked about how Linus Tech Tips should set a different password for the account. Some netizens also reacted with hilarious memes.

Linus Sebastian himself shared a meme on Twitter about his account ban and asked everyone to wake him up when he will have a channel to upload videos to again.

Linus also confirmed on their site “Floatplane” that they were aware of the hack of Linus Tech Tips and informed everyone that they were working with Google to resolve it. He said:

“Regarding the YouTube channel hack, we are on top of it with Google’s team now. Everything should be locked down and we are getting to the bottom of the attack vector with the (hopeful) goal of hardening their security around YouTube accounts and preventing this sort of thing from happening to anyone in the future.”

As of this writing, Linus Tech Tips' YouTube account remains banned from the platform.

About the author

Amrita is a trends writer at SK POP. She completed her post-graduation in English Language and Literature and has a rich writing experience in covering diverse topics such as blockchain technology, product reviews, travel guides, subtitles, and pop culture. However, her personal interest has always been in popular culture, which has aided her with injecting fresh insights to her stories.

Amrita emphasizes familiarizing herself with the topic at hand before approaching it solely from a writer’s perspective. She usually takes the longer route in sifting through all available information online, and makes use of primary sources and verified/official social media handles to check for consistency in details.

In case of discrepancies, she delves deeper into the primary and secondary sources for clarification, choosing to let go of a detail in case its accuracy cannot be established. She supports this approach by centering objectivity in her reportage, keeping her tone neutral at all times.

When not obsessing over a particular detail in her report, Amrita can be found reading fiction or exploring new shows or movies.

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Edited by Priya Majumdar