Fake YouTube Copyright Strikes Steal Creators' Google Accounts #cybersecurity #phishing #youtube

A phishing kit purpose-built for YouTube creators fakes a copyright strike that includes your real avatar, subscriber count, and latest video. Click "appeal" and your Google account is gone. Malwarebytes published a breakdown on April 15 of the kit, which embeds your channel handle in the URL, scrapes YouTube's public data to personalize the scare page, and pops a fake Google sign-in overlay when you try to appeal. Once the credentials are stolen, attackers take over the entire Google account — Gmail, Drive, Pay — and use the channel to run crypto scam livestreams. The whole operation runs as phishing-as-a-service with rotating domains. The fix: real YouTube copyright strikes only appear inside YouTube Studio. If it's in your email, it's phishing. Source: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/threat-intel/2026/04/fake-youtube-copyright-notices-can-steal-your-google-login More on cybersecurity, privacy, scams, and homelab on Hake Hardware. New shorts every weekday.