Amitha Reji George, Pune
On Wednesday night, Ranveer Allahbadia, popularly known as Beer Biceps, both YouTube channels were hacked. The official channel was renamed ‘Tesla’, and the handle was named @Elon.trump.tesla_live2024. His personal channel was renamed @Tesla.event.trump_2024.
All published podcasts and interview videos were removed shortly after the channels were hacked. Old broadcasts from events with renowned people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump were played in place of Ranveer’s video. The channels have since been removed from YouTube, and the page displays an error notice saying, “This page isn’t available. Sorry about that. Try searching for something else.”
Allahbadia hasn’t made an official statement about the incident. To address the matter, he did, however, post a few Stories on Instagram.
On his Instagram account, @beerbiceps, Ranveer shared a story a few hours following the incident. Ranveer posted, With a photo of food, “Celebrating my two main channels being hacked with my favorite food. Vegan burgers.Death of Beer Biceps met with Death of diet.” The YouTuber stated that he is back in Mumbai today, although he was in Singapore at the time of the incident.
He also posted a selfie with an eye mask, asking, “Is this the end of my YouTube career? Was nice knowing you all.”
The hackers used a livestream with an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated Elon Musk avatar to trick innocent viewers into falling for a cryptocurrency scam. By tricking the viewers by saying about doubling viewers’ earnings if they deposited Bitcoin or Ethereum on the fake website elonweb.net, the AI avatar persuaded viewers to invest in cryptocurrencies. This is commonly identified as a “Bitcoin doubling” fraud, and is frequently used in cyberattacks aimed at well-known YouTube accounts.
Allahbadia started the BeerBiceps channel at the age of 22 and started creating content. He has grown over the years with a total subscriber base of almost 12 million. He interviewed celebrities like Kareena Kapoor, Yuvraj Singh, Ajay Devgn, Tiger Shroff, John Abraham, Janhvi Kapoor and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Supreme Court of India’s official YouTube account was taken down last week due to hacking. Following the incident, the channel started showing videos promoting cryptocurrencies.