Hackers can take advantage of many services that we use in our day to day, applications or pages where we enter. They can hide viruses, launch phishing attacks or carry out any scam strategy. In this article we are going to explain why they can use viral YouTube videos to scam you, to strain viruses and get to control your device. Let’s talk about what you should keep in mind to protect yourself.
How they use viral YouTube videos to scam
Although platforms like YouTube have security filters, sometimes cybercriminals can get around them. It is something similar to what can happen with email, where we can receive dangerous emails and Spam despite the filters. But how do you take advantage of viral YouTube videos to scam and sneak malware? There are several methods.
send fake links
One of them is simply to take advantage of a viral video, something that has become very popular, and send alleged links to that video but they are actually false. Either they lead to a page that has nothing to do with a YouTube video, or they may even lead to that video, but uploaded by another YouTube user.
In this way they can make the victim reach a site controlled by the attackers and ask them to log in to watch that supposed video or download something. And of course, this is basically a Phishing attack and they aim to steal data and passwords. Never log in outside of an official platform.
But if you get to a video like the original, but uploaded by someone else, it can be a problem too. They could put links in the description for you to click and download a virus, for example.
Put links in the video description
They could also have targeted the legitimate channel that uploaded that viral video. They can take advantage of having control of that account to do whatever they want. Something common is that they sneak false links in the description of the videos. In this way, when someone sees the video, they may go to the bottom to enter a page they are talking about or look for more information.
The problem is that those links have been created maliciously. They can lead to a page controlled by the attackers, log in and have the password leaked, download some document that actually contains malware, etc. Always check very well if you are going to click on a link in a description on YouTube. You can look at the URL and detect if a link is fake without opening it.
Comments that lead to dangerous pages
Another problem is to find comments they may be there simply to attract attention and lead to fake and dangerous pages. Those comments could have been left by a cybercriminal and may go unnoticed and be there for a while until they are removed.
To avoid problems of this type, it is best to be careful with comments that have links. Avoid entering links if you don’t really know who might be behind it. Here common sense is essential to avoid problems. Likewise, having a good antivirus will be of great help in these cases.
In short, as you can see, they can take advantage of viral YouTube videos to strain viruses. It is important that you take precautions and do not fall into the trap. This will help you avoid having security problems, such as password theft or downloading a virus by mistake.
