Gospel artist Phyllis Mbuthia sighed a breath of relief after recovering her YouTube channel from hackers on Wednesday morning, June 14.
Mbuthia, renowned for the hit Rotaga na Unene (Dream Big), credited Digital Strategist Dennis Itumbi, and philanthropist Ndugu Nyoro for assisting her to get back to her feet.
"At this time, exactly 02:05 am, I have recovered by Google Account," Mbuthia posted on her social media pages.
The musician, however, blamed one of her close friends for her tribulations. Nonetheless, she played coy on whether she would seek legal redress.
"I leave him to God. I was silent for the sake of peace. He is the best pretender I have met in my life, but I am at peace because my God is both the prime witness and Judge," Mbuthia stated while declining to disclose the identity of the accused.
Moreover, she pledged to educate other content creators on how they can safeguard their channels in the future to avoid losing their source of income to hackers.
Nyoro, a philanthropist and one of the singer's friends, detailed the lengthy procedure the artist was subjected to before Google recovered her channel.
"She had to prove that she was the account's original owner. Some of the questions traced her to her university days.
"I had a lengthy phone call with her, and she told me that truly I am a child of God," he stated, adding that the content was gradually being uploaded on the channel to restore the watch hours. Watch time is the cumulative duration individuals have spent viewing a video on your channel.
Each YouTube video has a watch time tally, contributing to your channel's overall count. You must gain 4,000 viewing hours in 12 consecutive months for your watch time to count towards monetisation.
On Saturday, June 10, Mbuthia was heartbroken after losing the channel she had built for over seven years. She opted to open another channel, pleading with her followers to subscribe.
"I have almost 300K subscribers on the channel. Someone took my seven years and poured them down the drain. What did I do to deserve this?" the teary artist complained.
How to Safeguard Your Gmail Account
Users are urged to avoid giving out their personal emails on suspicious sites to avoid being hacked. Also, Google advises its users to adopt strong and unique passwords that involve various characters making it hard for others to guess.
Furthermore, other measures Google advises include doing a security checkup, updating the software, and removing unnecessary applications and browser extensions.
