YouTube.com vs YouTu.be...

[AmyStrange]

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I once clicked on a link that was the latter, thinking it was YouTube.com and got hacked.

I noticed some of the links here are YouTu.be... and I'm wondering if anyone else has (or had) the same problem?

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[RecoveringYuppy]

I answered you in another thread. youtu.be is a proper link to YouTube.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy

I answered you in another thread. youtu.be is a proper link to YouTube.

'cause everyoneknows that Belgium is the best place for art.

[AmyStrange]

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Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy

I answered you in another thread. youtu.be is a proper link to YouTube.

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Ok, but I once got a warning telling me (from Microsoft) that it was a dangerous site.

I looked it up and you're right. It's owned by Google, but after I clicked on a similar link in Facebook, my iPhone later sent me a message that my passwords (for multiple sites) were found online, and I had to change them all.

I also started getting e-mails that I was watching porn sites and unless I sent them $1,000 in bitcoin currency, they would release (to all my contacts) videos of me watching them along with the videos I was watching.

Yeah, I watch porn, but I've been covering all my laptop cameras three computers ago (including my two iPhones) for that very reason, so I knew they were lying.

Anyway, thank you for the info.

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[Segnosaur]

Originally Posted by AmyStrange

Quote:

I answered you in another thread. youtu.be is a proper link to YouTube.

Ok, but I once got a warning telling me (from Microsoft) that it was a dangerous site.

A couple of possibilities...

Maybe the site you clicked on wasn't youtube.com or youtu.be, but a fake site (like y0utube or yourtube).

Or maybe you were accessing the correct site and it was a temporary security glitch. Those things do happen. (Sometimes security certificates do not get updated properly, even on legitimate web sites for example. Or certain sites get falsely blacklisted.)

Quote:

I looked it up and you're right. It's owned by Google, but after I clicked on a similar link in Facebook, my iPhone later sent me a message that my passwords (for multiple sites) were found online, and I had to change them all.

I also started getting e-mails that I was watching porn sites and unless I sent them $1,000 in bitcoin currency, they would release (to all my contacts) videos of me watching them along with the videos I was watching.

I guess the question is "how similar was the facebook link".

Keep in mind that it is possible that all these password warnings and blackmail attempts had nothing to do with your video link, and it was just a coincidence that they occurred soon after you accessed the site.

[AmyStrange]

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Originally Posted by Segnosaur

A couple of possibilities...

Maybe the site you clicked on wasn't youtube.com or youtu.be, but a fake site (like y0utube or yourtube).

Or maybe you were accessing the correct site and it was a temporary security glitch. Those things do happen. (Sometimes security certificates do not get updated properly, even on legitimate web sites for example. Or certain sites get falsely blacklisted.)

I guess the question is "how similar was the facebook link".

Keep in mind that it is possible that all these password warnings and blackmail attempts had nothing to do with your video link, and it was just a coincidence that they occurred soon after you accessed the site.

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Thank you.

IIRC, it was a youtu.be site, but what was also scary was that the same link was sent to everyone on my friends list soon after I clicked on it.

All around, it was very, very weird, but I did find this article later (it's old, but it's almost exactly what happened to me):

Quote:

FROM: https://www.news.com.au/technology/o...3e8fdfc16a512f

Facebook messenger scam tricks you into clicking on virus-riddled YouTube channel
Margi Murphy (2017-08-29)

MAKE sure to scrutinise your Facebook messages VERY carefully — even if they are sent from one of your closest pals.

A scam is spreading across the social network, causing friends to inadvertently put their chum’s phones and gadgets in jeopardy.

Potential victims are met with an innocent-looking prompt to check out a video in a Messenger chat box.

The message includes the recipient’s name, the word “video” and a shocked emoji followed by a link...

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[CORed]

Originally Posted by Segnosaur

A couple of possibilities...

Maybe the site you clicked on wasn't youtube.com or youtu.be, but a fake site (like y0utube or yourtube).

Or maybe you were accessing the correct site and it was a temporary security glitch. Those things do happen. (Sometimes security certificates do not get updated properly, even on legitimate web sites for example. Or certain sites get falsely blacklisted.)

I guess the question is "how similar was the facebook link".

Keep in mind that it is possible that all these password warnings and blackmail attempts had nothing to do with your video link, and it was just a coincidence that they occurred soon after you accessed the site.

The one about how they have video of you watching porn is a well known scam. Those emails are just indiscriminately spammed, in the hopes that some of them will reach people gullible enough to believe that the scammers really have video of you watching porn and presumably pleasuring themselves while watching, and pay the blackmail.

[Captain_Swoop]

Originally Posted by AmyStrange

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Ok, but I once got a warning telling me (from Microsoft) that it was a dangerous site.

I looked it up and you're right. It's owned by Google, but after I clicked on a similar link in Facebook, my iPhone later sent me a message that my passwords (for multiple sites) were found online, and I had to change them all.

I also started getting e-mails that I was watching porn sites and unless I sent them $1,000 in bitcoin currency, they would release (to all my contacts) videos of me watching them along with the videos I was watching.

Yeah, I watch porn, but I've been covering all my laptop cameras three computers ago (including my two iPhones) for that very reason, so I knew they were lying.

Anyway, thank you for the info.

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Correlation does not always imply causation.
Maybe it was coincidence that your passwords were hacked etc.

[AmyStrange]

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Originally Posted by CORed

The one about how they have video of you watching porn is a well known scam. Those emails are just indiscriminately spammed, in the hopes that some of them will reach people gullible enough to believe that the scammers really have video of you watching porn and presumably pleasuring themselves while watching, and pay the blackmail.

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I know that now, but the very first one I got actually had one of my passwords as the subject.

Seeing one your passwords in the subject line is a little scary, especially since it was nothing that they could have ever guessed--twenty characters long with random numbers, punctuation marks, and letters (both lower case and capitalized).

I didn't pay the blackmail, because at the time, besides being broke, my only contacts also watched porn, and nothing came of it--or to put it this way, my contacts never told me about it, and believed me, they would've made a big, big deal of it.

Of course, I immediately changed it.

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[AmyStrange]

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Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

Correlation does not always imply causation.
Maybe it was coincidence that your passwords were hacked etc.

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You could be right, but after I clicked on the link, the same video was immediately sent to all my Facebook friends, and at one time, that actually was a problem:

FROM: https://www.news.com.au/technology/o...3e8fdfc16a512f

Facebook messenger scam tricks you into clicking on virus-riddled YouTube channel

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[Captain_Swoop]

So maybe you already had a virus.

[AmyStrange]

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Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

So maybe you already had a virus.

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Really, and it just happened to manifest itself right after I clicked that link?

Did you even read this article at all?

FROM: https://www.news.com.au/technology/o...3e8fdfc16a512f

Facebook messenger scam tricks you into clicking on virus-riddled YouTube channel

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[Orphia Nay]

I've had several friends accounts send messages like that about a video.

I've never clicked on the link because I know it's a scam.

Did you click on the link? Was it saying to send money somewhere?

The video could have the same message for everyone because they want everyone to send money to the same place.

The security message from Apple was just a coincidence. I had one the other day. They send them out when there's a data leak.

[AmyStrange]

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Originally Posted by Orphia Nay

I've had several friends accounts send messages like that about a video.

I've never clicked on the link because I know it's a scam.

Did you click on the link? Was it saying to send money somewhere?

The video could have the same message for everyone because they want everyone to send money to the same place.

The security message from Apple was just a coincidence. I had one the other day. They send them out when there's a data leak.

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I've had an iPhone for 6 years+, and I've never got one of those security messages until I clicked on that link, and it was very specific. It listed every site I had to sign into (my bank, Facebook, my web and e-mail accounts for example).

I immediately went and changed all my passwords.

And no, it did not ask for money. My phone just pinged (instead of going to the site), and then I got the security warning two minutes later.

Just before I changed my password, my friends on Facebook started getting those same videos.

Coincidentally, the following article warns about that very same thing:

FROM: https://www.news.com.au/technology/o...3e8fdfc16a512f

Facebook messenger scam tricks you into clicking on virus-riddled YouTube channel

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[Orphia Nay]

The messages from Apple are new.

I've had iPhones and iPads for 12 years and they only sent those password security messages in the past couple of months.

[mgidm86]

Originally Posted by CORed

The one about how they have video of you watching porn is a well known scam. Those emails are just indiscriminately spammed, in the hopes that some of them will reach people gullible enough to believe that the scammers really have video of you watching porn and presumably pleasuring themselves while watching, and pay the blackmail.

I have two friends who each got a popup on their PCs with a photo of them taken with their own webcam sitting at their computer. The popup claimed to be from the FBI and informed them that they'd been caught downloading pirated movies and they needed to pay a fine.


Freaked them out. I ended up cleaning both of their computers of all the malware they'd acquired.