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If you have a YouTube channel, there’s a new email scam (new to me anyway) you need to be aware of. This scam landed in my inbox earlier today. Luckily, the scam is so poorly executed that it’s pretty easy to spot.
The scam is that someone finds the email address you have associated with your YouTube channel’s “about” page and then sends you a PDF by sharing it via Google Drive. The PDF is titled “Copyright Warning” and claims to be from “YouTube Support”. However, the email address associated with the shared file is a generic Gmail address. This is the first clue that the email is a phishing attempt.
Another clue that it was a scam was that in my case, the email address found on my channel’s About page is different from the one I use to log in and post videos to my chain. YouTube Support, from which I have received legitimate emails, will only contact you via the email you use to log in and post to your YouTube channel.
Because I like to unravel scams like these, I made a video to highlight the flaws of the scam and how to avoid falling for it. You can watch the video here on my youtube channel or as embedded below.
Education requests
I like to take email scam attempts like this and use them as the basis for short cybersecurity lessons. Emails like the one I received today contain telltale signs of a scam that are fairly easy to spot. See if your students can spot them.
Some similar scams I’ve unraveled over the past two years include this one on image attribution and this one also about image attribution of someone impersonating a lawyer.