Successfully recovered my compromised Google and YouTube accounts in under 24 hours

Other Questions Gmail
1

Hi everyone! I want to share my experience recovering my hacked Google and YouTube accounts after falling victim to a phishing scam.

I run a YouTube channel with around 33,000 subscribers and regularly get sponsorship offers. Most are legitimate, but one recent email turned out to be a sophisticated phishing attempt that cost me dearly.

What happened:

I received what appeared to be a genuine sponsorship inquiry. The sender had spoofed an existing company’s identity perfectly. Their domain, website, and business details all checked out initially.

They sent me an executable file claiming it contained campaign details. Big mistake on my part - I downloaded and ran it. Nothing seemed to happen, but within hours I was locked out of everything.

The malware gave them complete access to my system. They changed my Gmail password, backup emails, two-factor authentication, and even my recovery phone number.

Recovery steps that worked:

For YouTube: I contacted @TeamYouTube on Twitter and got an immediate response. They noticed suspicious activity (the hacker was streaming crypto scams) and temporarily suspended my channel for protection.

For Gmail: I used Google’s help chat feature and selected the “account compromised” option. This connected me directly with their security team.

Both teams provided special recovery links that bypassed the normal verification steps since the hacker had changed everything.

Important discovery:

After regaining access, I found two hidden backdoors:

  1. Channel Manager Access: The hacker had added themselves as a manager on my YouTube channel
  2. Family Link: They added my account as a “child” in their Google Family group, giving them parental control over my account

Removing the family link required another support ticket since there’s no normal way to escape this situation.

Final steps:

  • Factory reset my computer and phone
  • Changed every password again
  • Set up fresh 2FA on all accounts
  • Ran YouTube’s account cleanup tool to reverse unauthorized changes

The whole process took about 20 hours from start to finish. Hope this helps anyone dealing with a similar nightmare!

2

Thanks for sharing this recovery guide. Same thing happened to me six months ago - got hit by a fake Adobe license renewal email that gave them access to my business accounts. You’re absolutely right about contacting support directly. I wasted two whole days on those useless automated recovery forms while they’d already changed everything. What’s crazy is how fast they pivoted your channel to crypto streams. Mine was sneakier - they just tweaked settings to redirect ad revenue, so I didn’t catch it right away. Pro tip for anyone reading: once you get your account back, turn on Google’s Advanced Protection Program. Yeah, carrying around security keys is annoying, but it basically makes these takeovers impossible. Also hit up Google Takeout to check if they downloaded your data before you locked them out.

3

This is exactly why I always test suspicious files in a VM before they touch my main system. Had a similar scare six months ago with what looked like a legit brand partnership email. The exe triggered my antivirus immediately, but these scams have gotten crazy sophisticated since then. The family link backdoor method really got me - that’s terrifying because most people wouldn’t think to check for that. I’ve been creating content for three years and fake sponsorship emails have definitely ramped up. Now I always request a video call with potential sponsors before any file exchanges. Real companies never have issues with this, scammers usually vanish. Thanks for the detailed recovery breakdown, especially the Twitter contact method for YouTube support.

4

yep, that family link thing is wild! glad ur back on track tho. 20 hours is impressive for such a mess! gonna be super cautious with those sponsor emails too, cheers for sharing!