Instagram: they stole the account of a well-known clothing brand and use it to scam other users

Instagram accounts have been targeted by cybercriminals for years. The most exposed are the "influencers", who earn money by sharing videos or photos sponsored by certain brands. But ordinary users of this social network are not exempt from someone taking control of their account.

Cyberattacks have evolved over the years. Some use the stolen accounts to contact brands and try to offer their services and participate in their advertising campaigns. They are so fast that when the owner of the profile realizes it, the hacker has already changed the name of the account and also the email address and even the contact telephone number.

This is happening to the well-known clothing brand Sathya. Last weekend, their Instagram account was hacked and since then cyber crooks have been using it for their own benefits.

Sathya Socolovsky, the daughter of Mónica Socolovsky -creator of the brand-, explained to Clarín how was the modus operandi used by the cybercriminals to get the account: "The situation began on July 9, when I received a message with the official Instagram format saying that for violating copyright rules, they were going to take down the page, and that we had 24 hours to enter a link that they gave me to suspend the page. There they asked me to change the password and also my name to enable their entry to the page".

Throughout this process, Sathya believed she was in contact with Facebook's technical staff, since, according to her, "they presented themselves with the official Facebook format and logos." "They led me to believe that my account was insecure and that it had been the target of an attempted cyberattack to demand my data and take over the account completely," Socolovsky added.

She also said that the hackers immediately changed the email and phone number of the account, with which she could no longer have access as a user. In desperation, she wanted to make the complaint but realized that there was no channel on Instagram that would make it easier to do so immediately. After losing the account, Sathya began to worry that hackers would do the same to his 12,400 followers.

He also shows his anguish at this situation because, as he said, "it's been six years of working drop by drop on Instagram, where each post we make reaches around five thousand people." And he stressed that this tool is key in "this time of pandemic, which makes the situation very critical for us."

After the hack, Socolovsky contacted the criminals who asked him for money in exchange for returning the account. "He started by asking for $200, which had to be sent by bitcoin to their account." But the transaction did not take place and the cybercriminal transformed the brand's page into another one to defraud other people again. "Changes the user permanently and deletes all the publications that we have been doing all this time. This is a huge loss."

How to protect your account

This week, Instagram launched Security Checkup, a new feature to help people keep their accounts safe. Scams, spam, phishing, and hacks violate platform policies. That's why Instagram is constantly working to improve detection of these behaviors and to give the community the tools they need to stay safe.

Security Checkup guides people who may have been hacked through the steps necessary to secure their accounts. This includes checking for login activity, reviewing profile information, confirming accounts that share login information, and updating contact information for account recovery, such as account number. by phone or email.

In addition, Instagram recommends a few steps people can take to keep their accounts even more secure: turn on two-factor authentication; make sure the email and phone numbers associated with your device are up to date; keep in mind that Instagram will never be contacted by direct message; report suspicious content and accounts, and turn on the login prompt to receive an alert whenever someone tries to log into your account from a new device or browser.

Another important thing is that Instagram is always contacted by email. The "Emails from Instagram" tool helps determine the legitimacy of emails coming from Instagram (can be found in the app under Profile / Settings / Security / Emails from Instagram).

In the case of a hacked account, Instagram offers different measures to protect it. In the first instance, the person should check if they received an email notifying an account address change. If so, you can undo it with the "cancel change" option.

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