By
Temitope Olatunji
April 24th, 2024
In September last year, a similar fake Apple event was streamed with 165k people watching.
September 7 was a big day for the release of the much anticipated iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Max, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max. The talk surrounding the event got the attention of others who knew Apple would have a huge day but had limited details. Interestingly, scammers took advantage of this to lure thousands of people into spammy websites using fake live streams of the event on YouTube. The video title and description had several Apple keywords sending it to the top of search results. However, it was filled with suspicious messages with links leading to malicious crypto sites.
The title was “Apple Event Live. Ceo of Apple Tim Cook: Apple & Metaverse in 2022.” However, it was showing an interview Tim Cook had with CNN in 2018, meanwhile the CEO spoke with Vox Media’s Code conference in the evening. Also, the video was filled with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and CNN Money logos. It also contained the text “Apple Crypto Event 2022,” with “URGENT NEWS” at the bottom.
Jay Peters, a journalist at The Verge explained that the views were around 16k when he first saw the fake Livestream. Later in the day, it increased to nearly 70k.
“I came upon this stream because it was recommended on my YouTube homepage – that might have been in part because I’ve been watching Apple videos from the event throughout the day,” he said.
This was not the only fake Livestream about the Apple launch. It was reported that a channel was also streaming another fake video featuring Cook and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. This also had over 10k views with links leading to some spammy crypto sites. Even though YouTube did not respond to a request for comments, the video was removed for violation.
Scammers have over the years taken advantage of major events to lure gullible people into their malicious campaigns. In September last year, a similar fake Apple event was streamed with 165k people watching. The video also had an announcement of Apple purchasing 100,000 BTC and conducting a giveaway event. This was immediately flagged as fake as the tech company was said to have no plans to buy cryptos, though Cook has some in his portfolio.