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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.
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.
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.
