YouTuber from Howrah clicks on 'like', loses channel, mail access
Times of India | 22 March 2023
KOLKATA: An YouTuber with over 16,000 subscribers fell prey to cyber fraud recently with the content provider losing access to his channel from February-end. The Gmail account used to operate the channel was also compromised. The cyber cell of South division on Monday finally managed to retrieve access to the channel.
With cops claiming that IP addresses from where the cyber attack was launched showing Russian locations along with one in Mumbai, the accused are still at large.
"We found the original contents were severely compromised and advertisements of well-known companies were instead put up there," said a police source. However, unlike the ransomware attacks usually witnessed in such cases, no ransom amount was demanded in this case,
YouTuber Abhradeep Dutta, a resident of Howrah who has his office at Shakespeare Sarani, usually puts up content on Rabindrasangeet using modern music arrangements.
On February 24, Dutta suddenly lost access to the channel. On February 27, he lodged a formal complaint with Shakespeare Sarani police and the case was taken up by the cyber cell of South division.
"When we asked for the Gmail ID attached with the channel, we realized that it had been hacked. The hacking took place after Dutta unknowingly clicked on a phishing link he had received via email from an unknown sender thinking it was an appreciation post for a video he had posted on his channel recently.
With the Gmail account hacked, the two-step authentication did not work as the OTP generated went to the compromised Gmail account," explained an investigator.
"A team from the South Division under the supervision of sergeant Suvankar Chakraborty swung into action and communicated with authorities concerned. After a prolonged effort and plenty of back-and-forth communication, access to the Gmail ID was retrieved and access to the associated YouTube channel was reinstated. Further enquiry is underway to find the motive behind the hacking," said DC (South) Priyabrata Sarkar.