Mr Beast $1000 giveaway: website scam & pop-up removal

A social engineering hoax impersonating the famous YouTuber Mr. Beast is targeting thousands of users with fake money giveaways aimed at stealing data or funds.

1. What is the Mr Beast giveaway scam?
2. Automated removal of MrBeast popup virus
3. Mr.Beast giveaway pop-up removal for Android
4. Restore web browser settings to their original defaults

What is the Mr Beast giveaway scam?

YouTube star MrBeast has gained quite a reputation for his viral videos, generosity, and charisma. His brain-teasing quizzes and eyebrow-raising gifts for viewers have attracted a legion of people who are tuned for new content on his channel. At the time of writing, the guy has more than a whopping 64 million subscribers. There is a fly in the ointment, though. Tremendous popularity is fertile soil for scams. Fraudulent campaigns impersonating MrBeast have targeted the Internet celebrity’s fans many times over the past few years. These swindles promise quick and easy gain but actually rip off gullible users or, at the very least, obtain personally identifiable information.

MrBeast giveaway pop-ups dominate these hoaxes. They often come in the form of YouTube ads that include the video blogger’s easily recognized logo, mention a certain amount of money (mostly $1000 or $10000), and provide a button saying “Get it now” or similar. Those initiated know that big prizes are part of their web idol’s repertoire and therefore may think of such an advert as another awesome chance they shouldn’t miss. Once a user takes the bait and clicks or taps the embedded button, they are redirected to a web page that says something like, “Your $1000 reward has now been reserved for you”.

These sketchy sites are hard to keep track of, because they only last for a couple of days and are superseded by new ones. Some examples are mb-1k.net, 1000-mbest.com, and beastfree1k.com. Their wording and structure vary, but there are common denominators in all cases. The page will usually say every visitor gets $1000 after completing several trivial tasks. First, they need to click the “Claim Reward” button, then download sponsor applications, and finally enter the email address enrolled with their PayPal account. Some spin-offs additionally ask for credentials related to a bank account or a mobile payment service such as Venmo or Cash App.

The landing page may also contain a timer that specifies a 10-minute deadline to follow the steps listed, otherwise the “prize” will slip out of the user’s hands. This is a classic element of social engineering: pressure makes people lose vigilance and rush headlong into making blunders. The sites are competently designed and adjusted to both desktop and mobile browsers. All in all, the MrBeast giveaway scam stands out from the crowd, as it is incredibly well-orchestrated, instills trust, and pulls the right triggers in would-be victims’ conscience.

Crooks get mileage out of this scam in a few ways. They collect numerous installs of apps whose makers pay for new leads as part of an affiliate marketing model. This provides a minimum level of monetization if the rest of the bad plan fails. A more serious upshot for the victim is that the information they are told to enter is verbose in terms of identity theft and financial frauds. PayPal details, for instance, may facilitate account takeover if they end up in the wrong hands. The same goes for other payment services listed in the tricky instructions.

Yet another facet of the MrBeast giveaway scam comes down to malware. In some scenarios, users are repeatedly redirected to the phishing sites because a strain of harmful code has quietly cropped up inside their PCs or mobile device. The infection may originate from one of those eye-catching ads on YouTube or a bundle of several programs posing as something useful but hiding a virus in plain sight. Unsurprisingly, this campaign is often referred to as a pop-up scam.

If a piece of malware is setting the problem in motion, things won’t go back to normal unless you find and remove the culprit. It’s also a good idea to check your system for threats that could have come attached to the “sponsor applications” advertised on the landing sites. The following sections will lend you a helping hand in this context.

Use Combo Cleaner for Windows to remove Mr Beast scam pop-ups

When faced with malware like Mr Beast, one of the best shortcuts in terms of removal is to use Combo Cleaner, a lightweight and incredibly effective application with PC security and optimization features under the hood. It detects and thoroughly deletes threats while giving you insights into the overall health of your computer.

This program’s protection power spans modules that forestall all known types of malware, including ransomware and browser hijackers, and take your online security to the next level by blocking phishing sites and other suspicious web pages. Follow these simple steps to eliminate the infection for good:

1. Download Combo Cleaner installer.

Download Mr Beast scam pop-ups remover

^{Combo Cleaner scans your PC with no strings attached, but you’ll have to buy its fully functional version to remove the threats it detects. The disk optimization tools that find large files and duplicates are free to use.}

2. Open the CCSetup.exe file to get started. Several subsequent screens will allow you to make initial customizations so that the program works exactly as you need from the get-go.

3. The installation will be followed by an update of malware signatures. Once this process is through, click the Start Scan button in the left-hand sidebar.

4. Combo Cleaner will then check system locations that are most often polluted by Windows malware. The first scan can take a while to finish.

5. Combo Cleaner will display a system tray notification as soon as the scan is over. Click the Resolve found threats button to view the results.

6. The scan summary shows the names and types of the detected threats as well as their statuses and locations. Click the Remove all threats button and follow further on-screen prompts to get rid of these items.

Use Control Panel to get rid of the MrBeast giveaway pop-up virus

• Open up the Control Panel from your Start menu in Windows. Depending on the OS build, select Uninstall a program (Windows 10, 7 and Vista) or Add or Remove Programs (Windows 8).

• To facilitate the process of locating the threat, sort the programs list by date to get the latest ones displayed at the very top. Find an unfamiliar, suspicious entry under the Name column, click Uninstall and follow further directions to get the removal done.

MrBeast giveaway pop-up removal for Android

Here’s a walkthrough to sort out the Mr Beast scam pop-ups issue on an Android device, which might also be a target in this malvertising campaign. Keep in mind, though, that uninstall attempts in regular mode may be futile due to the mechanics of this persistent infection. Therefore, you need to perform the procedure in safe mode. Go ahead and do the following:

• Press and hold the Power button. Then, tap and hold the Power off option on the screen. Doing so will boot your device into safe mode.

• Android will ask you to confirm that you’d like to enter safe mode. Tap OK on the dialog.

• You will now see the Safe mode inscription at the bottom left of your screen. Go to Settings and choose Apps.

• Scroll down the list of applications, focusing on the ones that were installed recently. Find Mr Beast or another sketchy entry with a different name that could as well be the culprit.

• Select the misbehaving app and tap Uninstall.

• Confirm removal on the relevant dialog box and reboot your device. By default, Android will get you back into regular mode. You should now be good to go – the Mr Beast scam pop-ups won’t be triggering any redirects or irritating popups anymore.

Restore web browser settings to their original defaults

In the circumstances of a complex browser hijack like this, executing a reset makes the most sense despite a few obvious downsides. Customizations such as saved passwords, bookmarked pages etc. will be gone, but so will all the changes made by the potentially unwanted program. The instructions below address the workflow for the web browsers most targeted by the Mr Beast scam pop-ups.

Reset Google Chrome

• Open Chrome, expand the Customize and control Google Chrome menu and choose Settings.

• Click Advanced in the sidebar, scroll down to Reset and clean up, and select this option.

• Click Restore settings to their original defaults.

• Finally, confirm the restoration by clicking Reset settings on the warning message.

• Restart Chrome.

Reset Mozilla Firefox

• Open Firefox, type about:support in the URL area and press Enter. Alternatively, you can click on the Open menu icon in the top right-hand part of the browser window, then select the Help option and proceed to Troubleshooting Information.

• On the Troubleshooting Information screen, spot the Refresh Firefox button and click on it.

• Follow subsequent directions to reset Firefox to its original settings.

• Restart the browser.

Reset Internet Explorer

• Select Internet options under IE’s Tools (Alt+X).

• Proceed by clicking on Advanced tab, then select Reset.

• To confirm the intended changes, click Reset on the Reset Internet Explorer Settings screen after ascertaining that the Delete personal settings checkbox is enabled.

• Reboot the machine to fully implement the fix.

Reset Safari

• Go to the Safari menu and select Preferences.

• When on the Preferences screen, select the Privacy tab and hit the Manage Website Data button.

• Click the Remove All button to purge all website data. Be advised this will log you out of online services and undo personalized web browser settings such as saved passwords, etc. If you aren’t okay with this, proceed to the next step.

• Safari also allows deleting data for specific sites rather than all sites in general. To use this option, select the unwanted site in the ‘Manage Website Data’ list and click Remove. Then, click Done.

• Click the Develop menu in the Finder bar and select Empty Caches.

• Finally, expand the History menu from the Finder bar and click Clear History.

• Make sure all history is selected on the dialog that will appear and click Clear History to get rid of cookies and other potentially unwanted data.

• Restart Safari.

Revise your security status

Post-factum assessment of the accuracy component in malware removal scenarios is a great habit that prevents the comeback of harmful code or replication of its unattended fractions. Make sure you are good to go by running an additional safety checkup.

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