Popular Indian YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia, also known for his channel “BeerBiceps,” suffered a major hack on both his YouTube accounts on Wednesday night. The attackers hijacked his channels, renaming them to misleading titles such as “Tesla” and “@Elon.trump.tesla_live2024.” All existing content, including interviews and podcasts, was wiped and replaced with old video streams of Elon Musk and Donald Trump to lend credibility to a cryptocurrency scam.
The attack targeted Ranveer Allahbadia, a well-known YouTuber with millions of followers. His channels are popular for self-improvement content and celebrity interviews. The hackers leveraged his reach and credibility to run a “Bitcoin doubling” scam, using an AI-generated avatar of Elon Musk to trick viewers into sending cryptocurrencies with false promises of high returns.
The incident occurred on the night of September 27, 2024. Following the hack, YouTube swiftly intervened by taking down both of his compromised channels. This comes shortly after a similar breach of the Supreme Court of India’s YouTube channel, heightening concerns about the security of prominent digital platforms.
The cyberattack targeted both of Ranveer’s main YouTube channels—BeerBiceps and his personal channel—both of which have a massive subscriber base. Viewers across India and beyond witnessed the sudden channel rebranding and fraudulent content, which misused Ranveer’s platform to spread the scam.
The motive behind the attack was to exploit Ranveer’s large audience for a cryptocurrency scam. Hackers streamed an AI-generated video of Elon Musk encouraging viewers to deposit Bitcoin or Ethereum on a fake site, elonweb.net, with the promise of doubling their investments. Known as a “Bitcoin doubling” scam, this tactic has been frequently used in high-profile hacks to dupe audiences.
After gaining control, the hackers rebranded the channels, removed the original content, and launched fraudulent livestreams. YouTube eventually took down the channels, displaying an error message for viewers. Allahbadia later responded humorously through an Instagram story featuring vegan burgers, quipping, “Celebrating my two main channels being hacked with my favorite food.”
The incident underscores a worrying trend of cybercriminals targeting high-profile social media accounts to run sophisticated scams and tarnish their credibility.
