The Independent's journalism is supported by our readers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn commission.
PewDiePie ransomware forces people to subscribe to his YouTube channel – or risk losing their data
'If T-Series beats PewDiePie the private key will be deleted and your files gone forever,' the ransom note states
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.PewDiePie has once again attracted controversy, after fans of the popular YouTuber released ransomware designed to lock people's data until his subscriber count hits 100 million.
The release of the ransomware comes amid the ongoing battle between PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjelberg, and Indian music channel T-Series.
"Subscribe to PewDiePie," stated the ransom note that accompanied the Pewcrypt ransomware. "If T-Series beats PewDiePie the private key will be deleted and your files gone forever!"
Ransomware is usually created to generate money for the cyber criminals behind it, who typically demand a sum of the semi-anonymous cryptocurrency bitcoin for the malware to be removed.
The Pewcrypt variant, however, appears to be designed exclusively to generate additional subscribers for PewDiePie's YouTube channel.
"Initially, the creator stated in the ransom note that the decryption would not be released unless PewDiePie reached 100 million subscribers, meaning if that didn't happen then people would have no means of decrypting their data," Michael Gillespie, a researcher at cyber security firm Emsisoft, told The Independent.
"Additionally, using the author's decryption would require that people trust the person who initially infected them to not further infect them with more malware."
A decryption tool for PewCrypt has been developed and released by Emsisoft, allowing victims to take back control of any compromised data.
Less than 15,000 subscribers currently separate the two channels, with T-Series currently in the lead.
Fans of the Swedish vlogger have gone to increasingly extreme measuress to keep PewDiePie the most-subscribed-to channel on YouTube.
In December 2018, cyber vandals defaced a section of the Wall Street Journal website with a message of support for PewDiePie.
In a separate incident hackers also took over thousands of printers and forced them to print messages calling for people to subscribe to his channel.
Earlier this month PewDiePie was forced to condemn fans for vandalising a World War II memorial in New York, which was tagged with the graffiti "Subscribe to PewDiePie".
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments