One might not be protected from hackers in the sphere of cryptocurrencies, even if one is the person who knows everything (or at least a lot) about cyber money, the blockchain, and tokens.
Recently, a YouTube vlogger, who creates content about digital assets, – Ian Balina – got hacked during his live stream session and lost $2 million in cryptos, a per The Next Web.
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According to Etherscan, the wallet operations demonstrate that the immense part of Balina’s units was withdrawn from his account at the moment when he was running the live stream.
Among the coins, that the vlogger lost, there were:
- over 20 million Nucleus Vision
- 2 million Pareto Network
- 1 million Loom
Hacking A YouTuber
Balina is famous for reviewing various ICOs (including the sponsored ones). He is thought to be an influencer in the niche of tokens as long as he creates reviews for ordinary investors. There are more than 117,000 subscribers, whereas there are over 26,000 Balina’s supporters on Telegram.
And on that dark (for him) day he was surveying one of ICOs on his channel. Nothing foretold troubles when all of a sudden Balina’s viewer informed him that “somebody” dispossessed all units from his crypto-wallet.
In the comments section, the person wrote:
“Ian, did you know that somebody transferred all your tokens from your account. Hope that it’s controlled movement.”
At first, the YouTuber did not pay attention to the warning, and he kept streaming his review. However, some 15 minutes later the live feed ultimately fell.
Allegedly, the session plucked because the electricity went down. But some hours later the vlogger continued the live stream. And only then he realized he had been signed out of his Google Sheets account.
With time the man revealed in his Telegram that he had been compelled to close his session suddenly as long as he got hacked.
Balina said the following:
Sometime later the vlogger went on to Twitter to announce:
Crypto Family, I need you now more than ever. I ended today's live stream b/c I am being hacked. I'm not worried about the money. I learned my lesson. I only care about catching the hacker. Please email any information to ibalina88@gmail.com. Thank you all the support. $ETH $BTC
— Ian Balina (@DiaryofaMadeMan) 16 April 2018
How Did Hackers Do It?
Balina has some suggestions concerning the cyber-attack. He believes that the hackers managed to crack his profile through his old college email address.
“My college email was listed as a recovery email to my Gmail. I remember getting an email about it being compromised, and tried to follow up with my college security to get it resolved, but wasn’t able to get it handled in a fast manner and gave up on it thinking it was just an old email,” Balina said.
The vlogger also supposes that it is Evernote that was hacked through his old email. Right there he stored the keys to his wallet:
“I kept text versions of my private keys stored in my Evernote, as encrypted text files with passwords. I think they hacked my email using my college email and then hacked my Evernote.”
It is noteworthy that, according to Balina’s words, the intruders have already started moving his assets to such famous cyber money trading venues as KuCoin and Binance.
This story is a good reminder to everyone who neglects the simple rules of safety standards.
