Quickly threw this video together so you know what happened and yes I'm stupid XD But hopefully this helps someone out there. Thanks again for all the support, it made this situation 1000x easier. Now this situation is over, we will go back to regularly scheduled content! :D
Happy to see you back im really worried, i just watched one of your video and the video disaspear on my eye and i go check your channel and i cant find anymore
A Ghost Signal has been sent all stellaris RUclipsrs have just got up and disappeared RUclips loses 1 pop Where have they gone? We need to investigate this phenomenon what is this signal ?
I think one reason a lot of people ignore red flags online is because so many legitimate sites and companies don't take any precautions against making their emails not contain red flags. You kind of get used to ignoring them.
I've been a professional in the tech field now for 23x years. We're constantly trained on hacks because they keep happening. It happens to everyone, and glad you're back.
The phone app's UI often obscures into that would be a dead giveaway if viewed on a pc. there have been a few people have fallen victim to this the same way.
I wasn't a subscriber before, but I've watched and enjoyed your videos. Your mea culpa convinced me to subscribe. I work in IT, and it amazes me how complex and difficult to spot these deceptions can be. I applaud your decision to post this video to not only take responsibility, but warn others and hopefully prevent someone else from falling into a trap.
What's more annoying is people claiming it's obvious and only stupid people fall for it. They're the kinds of people that cause ignorance of the issue to spread.
@@Ep3o Actually true. It was getting 0 views before the 23rd, but then increased to 5-10 per day xD I guess people were really interested in the Ep3o tragedy (of getting hacked)
Scammers get better each year. I nearly got scammed a few years ago to the youtube scam. It initially fell for it and didn't notice because of brainfog and depression. I missed some big cues, but I became suspicious when he didn't know the details of his supposed channel. Luckily, he got no critical information. More research and accounts help me avoid similar issues, especially since I am trusting by nature. Thank you for sharing and informing others. These scammers really are like a plague.
Reminds me of when a RUclipsr I watched several years ago fell to a similar thing. They had a false sponsor deal, in which the hackers ended up deleting their channel for 4 months before YT stepped in. We support you in all the dumbassary (something I’d fall to which makes it funny to me).
Yeah, I can believe having Spiff in your corner in a situation like this helps with peace of mind. Happy you got back. I hope you don't get any bad after effects. Wish you all good luck.
Glad you're back and have spent the time to prepare the video to help others learn. Years ago, I had a staff member access a dodgy website and download a virus which started encrypting everything. Fortunately, I had backups. We all make mistakes.
I remember being so shocked you were gone. I gaslit myself into believing i just didn't remember your name and that's why I couldn't find you. Glad you're back!
Pretty new to Stellaris and discovered your channel about two weeks ago. Your videos are awesome and insightful. I'm really glad you were able to get things back up and running rather expediently. I'm gonna leave your channel playing in the background while i play this weekend to hopefully help. Even if it is a tiny bit.
When you said "I've been doing a lot of coding" everything clicked. As a CS grad student myself powershell would not have set off alarm bells for me either, but watching you do this I'm going "WTF. No normal company would tell you to use powershell."
Sorry to hear this has happened to you and I'm glad you are able to get your stuff back. One thing I would suggest is a lot of sites have some kind of option to sign you out of all other sessions. It is a precautionary measure so that way if the attacker still has access into any of your accounts, it will kill their sessions so that way they can't continue to cause damage (a lot of sites won't sign you out of other sessions when you change your password, so it's possible that somewhere they still could be logged in). Not all sites have this and may require careful monitoring. I hope that they didn't manage to snag any personal information. Keep up the great content and I'm glad you're back!
Thank you for sharing how you were taken advantage of step by step, this is the kind of education end users need, even those that are already somewhat on guard.
Remote access payload as a powershell download and execute is pretty crude and barbaric as far as the cyber security industry goes... But that UI is convincing. Sending the thing as a word doc and telling you to fill it out is going to make you click that "enable editing" button that would normally prevent scripts. It's an intense spear Phish. These guys were on top of their game. It's scary. The scam is hard to detect (without virus scanning). It has almost none of the usual tells and most people don't understand the implications of right clicking on a parallel window (it pastes). HONESTLY: consider reaching out to whatever your local version of the FBI is. They probably won't do anything but there's a small chance these scammers aren't completely based in India/Nigeria/somewhere else without extradition.
If my comp can't open a file... that means that file shall not be open. Also powershell is such a big red flag. Even when using it for legit things, every time I give something a permission to use powershell I later revoke it, basically with powershell permissions they can hijack your PC under your nose. Also I will try to follow the steps, but not from their link, I'll first try to understand if that file is legit document and not click any links from the sender.
Seeing these videos is what make me panic that my email will get stolen and my 4 years of work will get lost (writing novels on google docs, and I rarely save backups)
I almost felled once for scammers and did fell for other scam once. These guys are perfecting their skills and sometimes they hit you right when you can't check everything as you should or just have a genuine hope in humanity (as I did) and then they hit you
Ah we need to boost the channel on the algorithm. Your videos are fun to watch, I get a lot of good ideas from them and also updates to the meta builds and loads of quality of life tips. Play lots of videos at the slowest playback speed, it does magical things to youtube (Tips from Spiff's channel)
>still loses data less often than the average large corporation. I've gotten phished via getting a concerning text while distracted with something else important. Be skeptical, the scams will only get more realistic. Trust but verify.
That actually isn’t a bad idea, imagine declaring war on someone and your energy weapons won’t fire and your strike craft won’t launch. Or even worse, your fleets refuse to move or move in the wrong direction, and your shields shut off leaving your massive fleet defenseless.
Thought we has lost you dude. I asked online but before I got an answer you were back. Phew. Always enjoy your videos. Glad to see you back on the Habitat. :)
Unfortunately no matter how hard you try all it takes is a moment of exhaustion or not thinking clearly, I had one playing video games with people and then a new person popped up got to know over like two to three years and then scammed out of a couple thousand while I was just trying to be nice and help out😅
I unsubbed when the hack happened b/c I didn't want to get spammed with scammy videos. Of course, I've resubbed now! Glad to have you back, this sounds like an awful situation.
1) when you clicked how to fix, it executed everything 2) always be cautious of anything asking about windows powershell. 3) also be cautious of word or notepad documents because it can have hidden script or code inside of it
I expected some sneaky macro in the online document, but that one is even more weird. Welp I'm glad everything worked out, and I guess this is a good lesson learned
sorry this happened to you dude... you do such neutral content that is inoffensive and non-damaging to all. happy you got this part sorted and hope its all good going forwards
HEADS UP! if they caught you at perfect time most likely they knew you were exhausted at the moment and struck knowing that. Sometimes they track activity of their victims
Remember. It's been a widely known issue that the Biological Processing Unit is error prone and been a cause of various security breaches. So don't feel bad too much about yourself. Just don't forget this lesson and it'll be fine. Anyway! I'm happy that everything work out for you in the end!
Being hacked f'ing sucks. Sorry you had to deal with that. All I can say is what my computer teacher used to tell me, 'Security through obscurity.' meaning, no one can hack you if they don't know you're there. Never use the 'remember me' box, it's trash and a free-lunch to any hacker worth their salt.
If they had access to your machine you need to do some additional clean up. All the sites you use reset credentials - but also log out of all active sessions. As an attacker I would have grabbed a copy of all the session tokens. They would have been able to extract all your local passwords/credentials and tokens as you ran the script under your user - browser history etc. You need to look at your 2FA settings - any changes to those should require a 2FA request if it wasn't your settings are either messed up or the product you are using is subpar. I would also assume they are reading your channel comments as well. Bad luck.
Mistakes happen, it could be a moment of non-vigilance or tiredness or a combination of different factors. Don't blame yourself too much, the blame should really go to the scammers and hackers, not you.
Okay that explains both why I was subscribed to a channel labeled Tesla, and why I was no longer subscribed when I checked today, I just assumed I somehow accidentally clicked buttons I didn’t mean to
Quickly threw this video together so you know what happened and yes I'm stupid XD But hopefully this helps someone out there. Thanks again for all the support, it made this situation 1000x easier. Now this situation is over, we will go back to regularly scheduled content! :D
Happy to see you back im really worried, i just watched one of your video and the video disaspear on my eye and i go check your channel and i cant find anymore
yeah. damn criminal syndicates
I was wondering why the uploads were slow, stay keeping on fam
@@Fyr3St0rm that’s actually a different reason, went to one video a week to finish off the degree! Although this situation certainly didn’t help lol
Just one questions left, the crypto promised will hit my wallet any second now right? right?
Damn the Contingency really is trying to take over
A Ghost Signal has been sent all stellaris RUclipsrs have just got up and disappeared RUclips loses 1 pop Where have they gone? We need to investigate this phenomenon what is this signal ?
Under rated comment @@NeoakiraIV
Damn, how tf did you find out.
@@NeoakiraIVNah Ignore the signal, it’s just a completely normal thing that has no negative side effects whatsoever.
Guys I think we should research Psionics for no reason whatsoever (We can't let them know our next move)
And they would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
And they would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for that meddling *Brit*
Should have researched more encryption tech
E
And they say espionage is worthless!
I think one reason a lot of people ignore red flags online is because so many legitimate sites and companies don't take any precautions against making their emails not contain red flags. You kind of get used to ignoring them.
Some internal company emails look worse than phishing attempts
Glad you got your account sorted and not lost to the Astral Rifts...!
Damn Spiffing Brit coming in to save you was something I was NOT expecting!
0:15 Tesla youtube channel got hacked though just this week earlier lol
He's back folks!
Mistakes happen. Glad your back.
I've been a professional in the tech field now for 23x years. We're constantly trained on hacks because they keep happening. It happens to everyone, and glad you're back.
The phone app's UI often obscures into that would be a dead giveaway if viewed on a pc. there have been a few people have fallen victim to this the same way.
It's a constant problem with a free folks at work that insist on using their iPhone mail app for work emails
Pretty big rip. =/ Glad you've got it back, though, dude.
It's interesting seeing behind the scenes of getting sponsors. Glad you're back now though!
I can't believe PDX is finally making espionage worthwhile 🔥
I wasn't a subscriber before, but I've watched and enjoyed your videos. Your mea culpa convinced me to subscribe. I work in IT, and it amazes me how complex and difficult to spot these deceptions can be. I applaud your decision to post this video to not only take responsibility, but warn others and hopefully prevent someone else from falling into a trap.
I work in IT too, it's pretty spooky sometimes what people come up with. It's no joke that that stuff is constantly evolving
What's more annoying is people claiming it's obvious and only stupid people fall for it. They're the kinds of people that cause ignorance of the issue to spread.
Glad you got your account back!
The terraria video was allowed to shine when my channel went down 😂
@@Ep3o Actually true. It was getting 0 views before the 23rd, but then increased to 5-10 per day xD
I guess people were really interested in the Ep3o tragedy (of getting hacked)
We're glad you're back!!
from criminal megacorp to necrophage channel transition
New espionage dlc: hack your favorite youtube, buy now for only 69.99 dollars
:)
Scammers get better each year. I nearly got scammed a few years ago to the youtube scam. It initially fell for it and didn't notice because of brainfog and depression. I missed some big cues, but I became suspicious when he didn't know the details of his supposed channel. Luckily, he got no critical information. More research and accounts help me avoid similar issues, especially since I am trusting by nature. Thank you for sharing and informing others. These scammers really are like a plague.
Reminds me of when a RUclipsr I watched several years ago fell to a similar thing. They had a false sponsor deal, in which the hackers ended up deleting their channel for 4 months before YT stepped in.
We support you in all the dumbassary (something I’d fall to which makes it funny to me).
Yeah, I can believe having Spiff in your corner in a situation like this helps with peace of mind.
Happy you got back. I hope you don't get any bad after effects. Wish you all good luck.
Social Engineering is how almost all 'hacks' work.
Glad you're back and have spent the time to prepare the video to help others learn. Years ago, I had a staff member access a dodgy website and download a virus which started encrypting everything. Fortunately, I had backups. We all make mistakes.
I remember being so shocked you were gone. I gaslit myself into believing i just didn't remember your name and that's why I couldn't find you. Glad you're back!
Pretty new to Stellaris and discovered your channel about two weeks ago. Your videos are awesome and insightful. I'm really glad you were able to get things back up and running rather expediently. I'm gonna leave your channel playing in the background while i play this weekend to hopefully help. Even if it is a tiny bit.
Welcome back!
It's literally what happened to Linus Tech Tips too
When you said "I've been doing a lot of coding" everything clicked. As a CS grad student myself powershell would not have set off alarm bells for me either, but watching you do this I'm going "WTF. No normal company would tell you to use powershell."
Sorry to hear this has happened to you and I'm glad you are able to get your stuff back. One thing I would suggest is a lot of sites have some kind of option to sign you out of all other sessions. It is a precautionary measure so that way if the attacker still has access into any of your accounts, it will kill their sessions so that way they can't continue to cause damage (a lot of sites won't sign you out of other sessions when you change your password, so it's possible that somewhere they still could be logged in). Not all sites have this and may require careful monitoring. I hope that they didn't manage to snag any personal information. Keep up the great content and I'm glad you're back!
I cant stop playing the Transformers mod along with the Star Wars mod. This game is still amazing
Spiffing Brit is a good chap, glad you got swift support in this.
Good to see you again Epo!
Welcome back bro :)
Damn , that sucks . Good to see you're taking it in stride .
Happens to the best of us. Just glad you got your channel back.
Thank you for sharing how you were taken advantage of step by step, this is the kind of education end users need, even those that are already somewhat on guard.
Dont say you are stupid, at least 1 person who never even knew you could be hacked like this is now informed.
Remote access payload as a powershell download and execute is pretty crude and barbaric as far as the cyber security industry goes...
But that UI is convincing. Sending the thing as a word doc and telling you to fill it out is going to make you click that "enable editing" button that would normally prevent scripts.
It's an intense spear Phish. These guys were on top of their game. It's scary.
The scam is hard to detect (without virus scanning). It has almost none of the usual tells and most people don't understand the implications of right clicking on a parallel window (it pastes).
HONESTLY: consider reaching out to whatever your local version of the FBI is. They probably won't do anything but there's a small chance these scammers aren't completely based in India/Nigeria/somewhere else without extradition.
If my comp can't open a file... that means that file shall not be open. Also powershell is such a big red flag. Even when using it for legit things, every time I give something a permission to use powershell I later revoke it, basically with powershell permissions they can hijack your PC under your nose. Also I will try to follow the steps, but not from their link, I'll first try to understand if that file is legit document and not click any links from the sender.
Glad to have you back. Looking forward to more achievement hunter videos =)
I'm sorry this happened to you. People should have to worry about being scammed while going through every day activities.
Was not expecting this to resolve so quickly.
im just glad your back!
Spiffing Brit is the Goat, man
It happened to Jim Browning too, no judgement
Wowee wowee wow! Sorry to hear of your suffering! Let's get some comments out there for engagement to hasten recovery with the algorithm!
Huh.
So that’s how that happened.
Oof! I'm glad you're back, have some more interaction to help.
Seeing these videos is what make me panic that my email will get stolen and my 4 years of work will get lost (writing novels on google docs, and I rarely save backups)
I almost felled once for scammers and did fell for other scam once. These guys are perfecting their skills and sometimes they hit you right when you can't check everything as you should or just have a genuine hope in humanity (as I did) and then they hit you
Criminal Contingency build overpowered
Ah we need to boost the channel on the algorithm. Your videos are fun to watch, I get a lot of good ideas from them and also updates to the meta builds and loads of quality of life tips.
Play lots of videos at the slowest playback speed, it does magical things to youtube (Tips from Spiff's channel)
>still loses data less often than the average large corporation.
I've gotten phished via getting a concerning text while distracted with something else important. Be skeptical, the scams will only get more realistic. Trust but verify.
Glad everything worked out and you are back
Next Stellaris Update: Subterfuge expanded, inplements interactive hacking of other empires
That actually isn’t a bad idea, imagine declaring war on someone and your energy weapons won’t fire and your strike craft won’t launch. Or even worse, your fleets refuse to move or move in the wrong direction, and your shields shut off leaving your massive fleet defenseless.
Thought we has lost you dude. I asked online but before I got an answer you were back. Phew. Always enjoy your videos. Glad to see you back on the Habitat. :)
Unfortunately no matter how hard you try all it takes is a moment of exhaustion or not thinking clearly, I had one playing video games with people and then a new person popped up got to know over like two to three years and then scammed out of a couple thousand while I was just trying to be nice and help out😅
I unsubbed when the hack happened b/c I didn't want to get spammed with scammy videos. Of course, I've resubbed now! Glad to have you back, this sounds like an awful situation.
Good luck for the future too. I learn many things about stellaris.
Sounds like you foiled a machine uprising
good lucky getting back into it
Happens to the best of us, you are wiser now for it!
glad that you got things sorted out.
Are you going to do any sanitation on that computer to make sure its clean? New hard drive, clean OS install, etc.
Wiped it clean! And fresh OS just in case
Did you get an achievement for it?
You're not alone. Scammers are opportunistic bastards that constantly have their lures out. You're not stupid!
Harsh man, can get the best of us don't beat yourself up - even that one is new to me so thanks for sharing.
I wanted to know about the warranty services for my dogecoin-powered Tesla, what channel is this?
1) when you clicked how to fix, it executed everything 2) always be cautious of anything asking about windows powershell. 3) also be cautious of word or notepad documents because it can have hidden script or code inside of it
We all make mistakes, just glad this wasn’t too big of one. Glad to see ya back!
lol this happened to 7news, an australian newscorp, too.
Lessons learned bro but glad your back sorted 👌
You should have taken that enigmatic engineering ascension perk for the +2 Encryption. Maybe now you will move it up to A rank.
I expected some sneaky macro in the online document, but that one is even more weird.
Welp I'm glad everything worked out, and I guess this is a good lesson learned
Glad you're back! 🎉
glad to hear that youre back
sorry this happened to you dude... you do such neutral content that is inoffensive and non-damaging to all. happy you got this part sorted and hope its all good going forwards
The goat lives!
Went through X50 crisis right there. Scamtana
That is why I do 2 factor authentication for everything
I get it @ep30, too much knowledge with a bit of tiredness and arrogance, can lead you to make a stupid mistake.
Glad you're back.
Glad you are back.
Seriously...
Send me those beforehand next time...
Cheers mate, glad you're back online.
Well Lessons learned :)
Glad to see you back
Damn space storms be going crazy
Just found you, this sucks man. Subb'd and liked. All the little bits help. Good luck.
glad to see you back
Commenting for the algorithm… again ❤
HEADS UP! if they caught you at perfect time most likely they knew you were exhausted at the moment and struck knowing that. Sometimes they track activity of their victims
Remember. It's been a widely known issue that the Biological Processing Unit is error prone and been a cause of various security breaches.
So don't feel bad too much about yourself.
Just don't forget this lesson and it'll be fine.
Anyway! I'm happy that everything work out for you in the end!
Well just consider it very stressful learning experience
Being hacked f'ing sucks. Sorry you had to deal with that.
All I can say is what my computer teacher used to tell me, 'Security through obscurity.' meaning, no one can hack you if they don't know you're there.
Never use the 'remember me' box, it's trash and a free-lunch to any hacker worth their salt.
Ahh, couldn't figure out what channel got hacked lol, saw the Tesla stream and was trying to figure it out lol.
If they had access to your machine you need to do some additional clean up. All the sites you use reset credentials - but also log out of all active sessions. As an attacker I would have grabbed a copy of all the session tokens. They would have been able to extract all your local passwords/credentials and tokens as you ran the script under your user - browser history etc.
You need to look at your 2FA settings - any changes to those should require a 2FA request if it wasn't your settings are either messed up or the product you are using is subpar. I would also assume they are reading your channel comments as well. Bad luck.
They'll have more than just your email login surely
What do you use to get those gorgeous travelling in stellaris ?
Mistakes happen, it could be a moment of non-vigilance or tiredness or a combination of different factors. Don't blame yourself too much, the blame should really go to the scammers and hackers, not you.
Okay that explains both why I was subscribed to a channel labeled Tesla, and why I was no longer subscribed when I checked today, I just assumed I somehow accidentally clicked buttons I didn’t mean to
Damm I thought we gonna se some Ep3o x Tesla colab :( Glad the channel is back tho
darn ghost signal..