Social media is not just something many of us use every day. For today’s array of content creators, it’s a vital source of income. From Instagram to YouTube, today social media is no less than a multi-billion dollar business. But while much of the focus is on the glitz and glam of content creation, far too little attention is given to the risks content creators face.
This is the story of a popular influencer who got locked out of their YouTube account by a cybercriminal—leading to significant loss of income and a data privacy claim.
Setup: Social media account hacked
Over a number of years, an influencer released video content across two YouTube channels, gaining thousands of subscribers and accumulating millions of views. The two channels became the sole source of revenue for the influencer, as they poured all of their time and energy into growing the account. Unfortunately, the bigger the following, the bigger the target.
In late 2023, the influencer received an email purporting to be from YouTube. The email was highly realistic, and advertised an online webinar on tips to market your account and reach more subscribers, before stating the need to click ‘opt- out’ for those who didn’t want to join. The influencer clicked the link, and on the next form that appeared confirmed their details and desire to opt out—unwittingly handing their details over to a hacker.
The next day, the influencer found they had been hacked. They could no longer log in to their YouTube account, and the bank of content they had built over the years had been erased. The hacker left a ransom note demanding $50,000 in return for restoring their account and the bank of content across the two channels.
How the policy responded
Too many content creators aren’t aware of the risks in their line of work. Fortunately, on this occasion the influencer had taken out media insurance with CFC, which offers comprehensive cyber cover and market-leading cyber incident response.
The influencer notified us of the incident as soon as they became aware through our Response app, and our incident response team began investigating immediately. We’ve built the largest in-house incident response and claims team in market, exactly for this type of situation.
To regain control of their account and recover lost videos, our experts found the influencer had to choice but to pay the ransom. We then investigated to discover if the hacker was a sanctioned entity, before supporting in negotiations to regain access to the account
Outcome: Covering financial loss, legal fees and restoring the account
The ransom was paid and as part of CFC’s technology cover, CFC reimbursed the influencer in full. The hacker made good on the agreement, handing control of the accounts back to the influencer and restoring their bank of content. However, some videos did go missing. Since CFC offers to ‘recreate’ unrecoverable data, not just support in ‘recovering’ it, we then worked with the influencer to reconstitute those lost videos from scratch, and covered the cost in full.
Throughout the course of the incident, the influencer had no way of making an income. CFC’s comprehensive technology cover is designed to cover business interruption loss, to support for loss of income when systems go down. Here, we worked with the influencer to calculate the amount of their loss, before covering it in full, helping to ensure the influencer’s business would survive.
That wasn’t all. When an account gets hacked, there may also be implications from a privacy perspective. Upon further investigation by CFC’s award-winning incident response team and after legal review, it was found that the insured was not in violation of any data privacy regulations. The additional cost of legal fees due to this investigation was covered under the policy.
Legal disclaimer: These examples are intended for illustrative purposes only and not intended to address the circumstances of any particular insured. Each claim submitted to CFC by an insured is based on the terms and conditions of the coverage provided to that particular insured and the facts and circumstances relating to a particular claim.
