YouTube, a global video sharing and social media platform, has warned its users against a phishing attempt using a convincing email address, [email protected]. 

Kevin Breeze, a content creator on YouTube, had raised concerns about receiving emails from an official email address posing as the YouTube team on Sunday. Many other YouTube users responded with similar emails they received in the days that followed. 

Now, YouTube has told its users that it is investigating the email address [email protected]. 

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“… We’re seeing reports of a phishing attempt showing [email protected] as the sender. Be cautious and don’t download or access any file if you get this email. While our teams investigate, try these tips to stay safe from phishing,” YouTube tweeted on Tuesday. 

Phishing is usually an internet-based attack that attempts to steal money, personal information or data from victims through emails or websites that appear legitimate. 

According to Phishing.org, “phishing is a cybercrime in which a target or targets are contacted by email, telephone or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details, and passwords. 

“The information is then used to access important accounts and can result in identity theft and financial loss.” 

YouTube account users may lose not only their personal information but control of their accounts and channels if they fall victim to the latest phishing moves.

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Many phishing attempts include unusual messages from unexpected or unknown senders, suspicious hyperlinks, carefully crafted internal URLs or web addresses, offers to make money in a lottery, quick money-making schemes and a host of other dubious contents. 

In this particular case, creators have agreed that an old video sharing system was being exploited. YouTube users could share videos via email using a special but currently unpopular email sharing feature. 

The scammers are simply using hijacked or renamed YouTube accounts to send messages to other users through the video sharing feature. YouTube users can remove the ‘share video by email’ feature and follow YouTube’s anti-phishing tips.