 What do you do if your YouTube channel account has been hacked? How can you protect your channel from hacking attempts? Find out in this video so that you can keep your channel safe and monetized. Hi there, this is Freedom Quick Tips, your trusted source of information for everything YouTube related. And in this video, we'll talk about how to recover your channel when it's been hacked and the steps you can take to protect it. Let's get started. From kings and princesses requiring your help with their mountains of money to winning lotteries you never entered, to request to update your banking information or else your account would be frozen for reals. Online scams are an internet hazard that we're all familiar with and to some extent have gotten used to. Much like random monster encounters in role-playing games, but this real world role-playing game could cost you a lot of money. One of the more prevalent techniques that these monsters, I mean hackers, use is phishing. No, not phishing with an F, phishing with a PH. Alright, metaphors over. Phishing, for the uninitiated, is the fraudulent practice of sending emails perpating to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers, as per the Oxford English Dictionary. According to the cybersecurity experts, Phil's lab 2018 saw an upsurge in phishing attacks from the prior year with an increase as high as the 107% in Canada and even 905% in Turkey. With more and more people integrating the internet in their daily lives, cybercrime has kept pace. In early March of this year, popular lifestyle vlogger and podcast Megan Rinks reported that her secondary channel had been hacked. After her email account was compromised while she has since regained control of her channel, her videos are yet to be recovered. In another incident reported in Forbes, YouTuber Marco Stile had his gaming channel hacked back in 2019. After clicking on a link in a sponsorship offer email he received, he was also eventually able to recover his channel and was actually fortunate enough to get back all of his videos as well. So what can you do to protect against phishing? Here are some practical tips to help secure your account. Make sure to keep your antivirus protection up to date, same with your browser and operating system. Turn off the option to automatically download attachments for your email. Turn on two-step verification, also known as two-factor authentication or multi-factor authorization. Ensure that you have a strong password. Don't use common words or personal information like your birthday. Ideally, use different passwords for different sites. That way you won't be compromised in one fell swoop. HaveIbeenPon.com is one of the sites you can use to check if your password has been previously compromised. While the Comparitech password strength test can help you determine if the password you're using is up to snuff and can even help you generate one. And yes, both sites don't store the password information if you're a Chrome user. There's also an extension called Password Alert that will send you automatic alerts when your Google password is used to sign into non-Google sites. Be wary of messages asking for your credentials. Your emails only come from at youtube.com or at google.com addresses. Don't click on links or open attachments from unknown sources. Verify offers or requests by contacting the company or individual directly. Also have a different email address for business offers on your channel and use it only for that. But what if, despite all your precautions, your account still gets hacked? What can you do then? If that's the case, just follow these steps from YouTube's help article on fixing a hacked account. If you can still sign into your Google account, go to this website, link in the description below and follow the instructions on the page. If you can't sign into your Google account, go to this website, link below as well, and follow the instructions there. You'll be asked some questions to confirm it's your account and it's important that you answer as completely and as best as you can. If you are a Freedom Partner, you can always email us at supportatfreedom.tm and we can contact YouTube on your behalf to help you in getting your channel back. And however, that it will take some time for YouTube's internal team to validate and recover hijacked accounts, generally several weeks, and there's no guarantee that they can get your videos back if the hackers have deleted them. So in this situation, prevention is better than the cure. Alright, let's summarize. You can help prevent getting your account hacked or hijacked by keeping your security and critical software up to date, ensuring that you have a strong password and being extremely careful with which email you open or reply to. If you do end up with your channel hacked, immediately report it to YouTube following the proper steps we discussed earlier and provide as much information as required. If you have any questions, do let us know in the comment section below and don't forget to like, subscribe, and ring that notification bell icon. This has been Freedom Quick Tips, guys, and we'll be seeing you in the next episode. Goodbye!