In a startling cybersecurity breach, renowned Indian YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia fell victim to a sophisticated hacking attack on Wednesday night. Both of Allahbadia’s YouTube channels, including his popular ‘Beer Biceps’ channel, were compromised in an incident that has raised alarm bells about the vulnerability of high-profile social media accounts.
The hackers took control of Allahbadia’s ‘Beer Biceps’ channel, renaming it to “Tesla” and altering its handle to “@Elon.trump.tesla_live2024”. In a similar vein, his personal channel was rebranded as “@Tesla.event.trump_2024”. In a move that has shocked fans and fellow content creators alike, the cybercriminals proceeded to delete all existing interviews and podcasts from both channels.
The deleted content was replaced with older streams featuring high-profile figures such as Elon Musk and Donald Trump. The hackers then employed a particularly cunning tactic, using an AI-generated avatar of Elon Musk in a livestream to perpetrate a cryptocurrency scam. This digital doppelganger urged viewers to invest in cryptocurrency, falsely promising to double their returns if they deposited Bitcoin or Ethereum on a suspicious website, elonweb.net.
Cybersecurity experts have identified this as a “Bitcoin doubling” scam, a common method employed in attacks targeting prominent social media accounts. This incident is reminiscent of past high-profile hacks, such as the 2024 breach of McDonald’s Instagram account. In that case, hackers promoted a fake cryptocurrency called ‘GRIMACE,’ named after the company’s purple mascot, reportedly earning $700,000 before the scam was detected and shut down.
In response to the breach, YouTube has taken the drastic step of removing both of Allahbadia’s channels from its platform. Users attempting to access the channels are now met with a message stating, “This page isn’t available. Sorry about that. Try searching for something else.”
