How 48,000,000 Minecraft Accounts Got Hacked

What if I told you that every Minecraft account has their own countdown before they are stolen from their rightful owners it could be months it could be weeks or it could even be a matter of seconds unbeknownst to most players lies a hidden undergone economy of Minecraft accounts a network of people stealing

Selling and poaching legal goods and yes I’m still talking about the Kids Care these people hide behind Minecraft status as a kids game to prevent themselves from getting caught but let’s take a step back why would they want to hack your account what’s so valuable about your account that they need to

Resort to stealing it from you you see each account has their own set value depending on how long you’ve been playing the game you may have something of value that someone would want one of these things is your account’s username the name you wrote when your major accountant could have easily shortened

Or lengthens the time before someone in the black market comes after you this is because Minecraft operates on a unique naming system every username is unique and you can’t name yourself a username that has already been taken but this is where the black market comes into the

Equation they will start with a method known as name sniping setting their sights on every accounting for using the name of Interest monitoring all of their actions by using a website like name MC they can keep track of exactly when a username becomes available they would then begin spamming out requests for the

Username to claim it right as it becomes available once they have the username this is when it starts being sold on the black market the shorter or more common the name or word your username is the more valuable and rarer it is these names are called OG names a username

Like link Mario apple and dream is considered OG and will be sold for hundreds if not thousands on these black markets paid entirely with cryptocurrency so that it is both non-refundable and much more difficult to trace but if an account is much rarer and more profitable they might resort to more drastic measures

Taking that stocking to another level they will start by digging up data leaks websites are under attack every single day and some would end up with data breaches leaking your personal information for the black market to pick up they would eventually find an old email or an old password that belongs to

You and just like that they’re in did someone hack my Minecraft account is that even oh no you found the the leaked email which is the Wonders Minecraft account and there is like no leaked passwords online for that but you use that yeah to find his main email which

Did have leaked passwords and one of those passwords worked put them down yeah so it’s that easy yeah it was that easy you might say well my name isn’t short and isn’t high in demand so I should be safe accounts without a desirable username will still be stolen

And be sold at a much much lower price primarily for those who want Minecraft at a cheaper price or for those who were like an old account to cheat on servers such as Hypixel or sometimes they will be stolen from you just because someone wants to see you suffer the reasons go

Beyond monetary gain and you could become a Target just because they feel like it however they don’t stop there if you thought that people were going too far for a miserly name tag in Minecraft you have not seen anything yet the desperation people will go just for

A cape has an even wider range of insanity in 2015 the convention center that held Minecon had a database breach exposing the emails of every attendee into the hands of anyone who is desperate for a cape they will start with emails directly asking if people were willing to sell their account hello

I wanted to ask you a question if you have ever thought about selling a Minecraft account I would be interested in buying it I also wanted to ask if you have been at the Minecon with any other people from your family and if you have any more Minecon quotes I will truly be

More than happy about getting them or purchasing them from you I’ve gotten text and emails from folks asking to buy any leftover Cape codes for me I just got an unsolicited email from a random guy asking to buy any spare Minecon Cape codes why the heck am I getting emails

From people wanting my mind concave how the heck did you get my email and then it would evolve into outright phishing scams hello there we have noticed suspicious activity on your merging account we suspect that your merging account is being resold or has been stolen we need confirmation that you are

The original owner of the account therefore we need your account username email transaction ID from purchase country and date of birth listed on the account this same cap Hunters were even willing to ruin Mojang’s own crowdsource programs just for keep the translator kit was given out to those who voluntarily proofread Minecraft

Translations on crowded and it all had to be discontinued once Jen saw the abusive behavior from some translators there are people who join only so they go get the cape ruining the progress of those who actually cared about what was going on and made actual contributions but even these pailed in comparison to

What happened to those with personalized one-of-a-kind capes one of these accounts was Danny B Styles which belonged to video game composer Danny baronowski much like this music and randomly decided to give him a personal Escape placing his account in the sides of the black market his account will be

Stolen a grand total of three times be sold on the black market twice and also be locked by Mojang twice with the second being indefinite another account was Ackerman 1. the player who received the cape for buying the one million copy of Minecraft he would also receive multiple hack attacks over the game’s

Lifespan all of which would fail due to ackerman’s account having a stronger security all of them except one the hacker started off by searching up Aquaman’s email from database leaks finding an email of his tight with his phone number using inside connections from within Verizon the hacker is able

To obtain ackerman’s SIM card number they would then contact Verizon pausing them to Ackerman asking for replacement SIM card providing the SIM card number as proof with acroman’s phone number now completely in their hands they were able to bypass this two-factor authentication gaining access to his emails and obtaining increments transaction ID for

His purchase of Minecraft posing as Ackerman again to Mojang support they finally gain access to ackerman’s Minecraft account selling it for a whopping two thousand dollars on the black market before Mojang could lock the account these attacks on one-of-a-kind cable counts show no sign of stopping the most

Recent victim to the black market happened on June 6th this year Billy K is a long time Minecraft player who received the cape from jab on 1.13 because of his suggestions to add Turtles to the game his 12 years of playing Minecraft a decade of memories

Were all taken away from him in a matter of seconds but thankfully Billy will be the only person that gets a happy ending out of everyone receiving his account back after 24 hours however the damage has been done his account may be intact but the same can be said for his mental

Health having high functioning anxiety that just became flat or anxiety after the security breach Billy K lost his appetite and hasn’t slept well since to put it in his own words I’m not okay and I don’t know if I will be ever again sadly these aren’t even the worst that they can do

You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned Mojang directly yet and this is because I wanted to save them for last current employees and ex-employees receive exclusive Mojang keeps making them frequent targets of the black market it has gotten so bad a former Community manager at Mojang turned down

Her employee Cape due to fear of hackers on the black market stealing her account but none have it as bad as Mark Watson Mark has been working on Mojang since 2012 receiving all three of the modern capes he has all five Minecon caps presumably attending every single one of

Them given that he was responsible for adding maps to Minecraft realms Mark also had the Realms mapmaker Cape as well as the Scrolls Champion Cape Cobalt cape and the migrator cape in his collection with a grand total of 12 capes Mark has one of if not the most

Sought after account of all time his name MC profile has 1230 followers as of this record we should give you a sense as to how many people wanted this account and not all of them were going to be nice about it in March of 2022 an unknown player

Threatened to dogs Mark in exchange for his account placing his personal information on the line forcing Mark to give his account all because of the capes it had one of these people have resorted to extortion these are just some of the stories that I could find there are plenty more

Stories that go Untold I have gotten my address suite my home address I’ve gotten cops into my house falsely I’ve also gotten blackmailed for money and several things multiple times and the extent Beyond just usernames and capes there’s a black market around servers such as Hypixel Hypixel Skyblock and

Many more actively turning kids into cyber criminals to spread their malware and do their dirty work so that it doesn’t Trace back to them this is a growing problem that affects us all usernames and capes are only going to become rarer and rarer as time goes on increasing their value over time these

Attacks are going to affect more and more people until something changes No One Is Safe from them as long as you own a Minecraft account you are risk you may not be a target for now but I wouldn’t recommend waiting until they do for you to start carrying the black market will

Come for you it’s only a matter of time and I I’m no exception I am not safe from being targeted by these people either I could either withhold all this information and keep myself temporarily safe in silence or I could expose all of these to the public eye and make myself

A potential Target to these people and if you’re watching this video you know where I stand my reason for this two years ago a 60 year old Tennessee man died of a heart attack after he was swatted by people their reason for swatting him it was all because he

Refused to sell someone his unique Twitter handle Minecraft is going down a similar dark path and I refuse to be silent about it I will not sit around and watch as the issue gets worse and worse to the point that someone dies in the near future I don’t want Minecraft

To be remembered as the game that got someone killed over something as insignificant as a Minecraft cap I know what’s actually happening in the game right now you and everyone in the community deserves to know as well but there is still one last problem I’m just a freaking Minecraft Youtuber who

Has yaimiko from gentian Impact that’s his skin which is why I need your help I need you to help spread the word inform other people of what you now know on top of that here are some precautions that you and everyone could take to maximize your safety first of all have a strong

Password the best advice I could give is to think of it less as passwords and more past phrases subscribe to xender and so it hits 100K subscribers before 2024 and like the video if you’re enjoying it so far comma can we hit 25k likes are very good examples of secure

Easy to remember passwords while we’re on the topic of passwords do not reuse them don’t let one security Bridge compromise every other account you own make sure you also use two-factor authentication from worst to best are SMS based authenticated apps push base and Hardware based with Sim stopping

Continuing to be a massive risk I would advise against using your phone number if possible and transfer your account from Mojang to Microsoft if you haven’t yet it’s safer and has more Security in place you have until September 19 to do so moving on be careful around those

With OG names or Joseph capes unless there’s someone you know or they’re a popular figure there is a high chance that their accountant is involved with the black market it’s better safe than sorry it also helps to be prepared have backup security to prevent others from

Being able to track your IP address one example of this is using a VPN which is why this video is sponsored by nordvp I’m kidding I’m kid and if this video isn’t enough of an emphasis stay far far away from the Minecraft black market not only will you be involving yourself with

Dangerous people any involvement of them goes against Minecraft’s end user license agreement Mojang has the right to refuse to support if anything goes wrong the rest are basic internet etiquettes be very careful where you download mods from always be suspicious of files and links from Discord as well

As any email we receive if it’s too good to be true it probably is mojangwan never sent you an email asking for your transaction ID or any personal info they already have it be sure to let those around you know and do your best to keep each other safe but ultimately Mojang

Needs to take drastic action to prevent these attacks to begin with not normal drink support team they have it hard enough already there needs to be changes around the game and the launcher itself I’m gonna share with you the solutions that I believe would help make Minecraft much safer for everyone however this

First one is going to be controversial and I want you to promise you’ll hear me out alright ready three two one I think more Chinese would do value capes I’m not alone in believing this Mark Watson himself the man who has it the words out of all of the cape accounts

Holds this Viewpoint as well capes are these nft-like super red Cosmetics that are near impossible to obtain and It ultimately pushes people to Desperate Measures with fear of missing out this Rarity is the main factor that’s supporting the black market with capes are more common easier to obtain or even

Purchasable from a store it will essentially kill off any power the black markets have why obtain caves by illegal means when a legal and more convenient method exists if we can’t make pass skips less rare then we should at least make future caves more common or just make capes customizable like it’s part

Of your skin optifine’s already doing it or maybe go a step further and make them customizable with banners like we do with shields it’s a perfect opportunity for creativity something Minecraft Prides itself on the other thing they have to do is privatize the Java API we

Should be able to private our own entire Java accounts and height info from the Bad actors this is like Reddit where the API plays a key important role that helps us all the API in Minecraft Java does is help the name snipers the hackers the wrong people by privatizing

Java’s API and making it so no account is viewable on name MC and sites similar to it Mass tracking and monitoring of accounts becomes impossible it will outright kill name sniping and the black market as we know it and finally given that the black market is a massive

Violation of Minecraft’s Eula I’m no lawyer but certainly these are grounds for legal action as much as Mojang loves to lock accounts that come under Fire they need to fight back more effectively these people are in it for the money not the accounts they are already paid so

The person the account was stolen from and the buyer are the ones suffering here Mojo needs to stop spending their precious time looking gun servers and sending the MCA strikes to Jenny mod Creator and start dealing with the literal criminals within their games black markets will continue to exist so

Long as you give them a reason too in an ideal world where capes don’t have complete control over the community underground tactics such as name snapping are much more difficult and being caught has legal repercussions the black market will go away on its own moving to another game that’s easier to

Exploit you can’t kill the black market you could only starve it from what it wants desperate vulnerable people mostly kids who they know have no means of fighting back it’s time that we the Minecraft community and Mojang push back against these people and make our message to the

Black market clear that Minecraft is a game that only supports the black market when it involves villagers no other exceptions we can do this we can make the game safer and better for you for me for everyone all of us and if you like something more light-hearted a second

Easier and simpler way of improving Minecraft check out this video where I talk about the Minecraft rip-off that fix copper it covers how we can improve copper as a resource something less serious than this give it a watch and I’ll see you there my name is Jay Lawrence thank you for watching