Impersonation Meets Innovation: What Creators (and Small Businesses) Can Learn From the Most Elaborate Phishing Scam Yet

Originally inspired by Lon Seidman’s detailed blog and video breakdown

YouTube creator Lon Seidman recently exposed one of the most polished phishing campaigns targeting content creators to date—and it deserves your attention whether you’re a full-time YouTuber, a Twitch streamer, or a small business with a public-facing presence.

🎥 Watch Lon’s full video here:
https://youtu.be/R8jWBjh9EH8

📝 Read the blog post:
https://blog.lon.tv/2025/07/27/the-most-elaborate-youtube-credential-stealing-phishing-attack-ive-ever-seen

What Happened?

Scammers are impersonating well-known brands and reaching out with offers of sponsorships or brand deals. The pitch is clean. The domain looks legit (but isn’t). The contract or demo file looks official—but it’s a cleverly disguised trap.

Once downloaded and run, these files steal your browser’s session tokens—bypassing MFA entirely—and take over your Google account. Within minutes, your channel is gone.

Why It Works

• Custom domains that closely resemble real brand assets
• Well-crafted emails that bypass most spam filters
• No need to phish passwords—just steal the session and bypass 2FA altogether

This Isn’t Just a Creator Problem

If your business has:

• A public inbox
• A web presence
• Any incentive to trust a “new partnership” email…

You’re a target too.

What You Can Do Right Now

• ✅ Never download or run unsolicited files—especially executables, zip archives, or “contract” PDFs
• ✅ Use hardware-based 2FA like a YubiKey or Titan key
• ✅ Enable Advanced Protection if you’re a Google Workspace or YouTube user
• ✅ Confirm domain authenticity (e.g., @sonypartnerpromo.com ≠ @sony.com)
• ✅ Monitor your own domain’s SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to avoid being spoofed

Security is no longer just an IT department’s problem. It’s everyone’s job now—especially if your brand, channel, or business depends on trust.

Stay sharp. Stay skeptical. And again, credit where credit is due—thank you to Lon Seidman for documenting this so thoroughly.