Cybercriminals are constantly looking for ways to cheat, identity theft is one of their practices. Now they are trying to hack Instagram accounts by writing a private message to the possible victim, making him believe that it is an acquaintance who intends to give him a gift.
This is what they have tried to do to a journalist from cursed.es, who recently received a message purportedly from an Instagram acquaintance he follows. In the message, that person tells you that she has been randomly selected to receive a gift from a cryptocurrency mining company.
The alleged gift is 500 pounds (about $600) and to get it, the journalist had to change her email account linked to the platform and put the one that the other person told her. When you do that you give the owner of the email address access to your Instagram account and they could hack your account.
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To avoid hacks, the National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) recommends ignoring suspicious messages that ask to follow instructions, such as clicking on a link or sending information.
The hacking attempt occurs when they ask us to change our email address to the one they tell us
The Maldita.es journalist received a private message from an old acquaintance offering her a supposed gift: âCongratulations. You have been randomly selected for a gift of 500 pounds (600 dollars)â, can be read in the message written in English. According to what they tell her, the money is paid by a bitcoin mining company and to get it she has to follow a few steps.
The procedure that he had to follow was to go to the settings of his personal profile and change his email address, linked to the Instagram account, to another. By doing this, Instagram will send an opt-in request to that email account, thereby gaining access to the impostor and taking over the profile.
In a similar case that we have in cursed.esfrom INCIBE indicated that it is possible that a cybercriminal had previously taken control of the profile of the contact to whom he writes.
The alleged bitcoin mining company that would give the gift is an Instagram profile that encourages investment in cryptocurrencies
During the conversation this person insisted several times that he follow “the procedure”, change the mailing address, to get the money. Without doing this, the Maldita.es journalist asked for information about the supposed company that paid for the gift and it turned out to be an Instagram profile.
When contacting that profile, the person on the other end encourages her to invest in bitcoin a minimum of 500 pounds (about 600 dollars), although he recommends starting with 1,000 ($1,200) or more to obtain a “better profit margin.” â. She finally asks him to download a mobile app to supposedly start investing through it.
What this supposed expert in cryptocurrency tells you in the chat is that if you invest you will always have profits: âYou will not be able to lose your money. We eliminate the risk by trading short-term and you are dealing with a professionalâ.
In general, you should be wary of this type of proposal that promises quick profits with an investment and a very high return, as explained by the Internet Security Office (OSI). At Maldita.es we explain what we should take into account if we really want to invest in cryptocurrencies and other practical information about this cryptocurrency.
There are similar cases in which Instagram accounts are hacked to promote supposed investments in cryptocurrencies
In Maldita.es we tell a similar case in which the other person’s Instagram account was hacked, the journalist Guillermo MartĂnez, who also received a direct message on Instagram from an acquaintance whom he follows. From INCIBE they explained that, possibly, a cybercriminal had previously controlled the profile of that contact.
In his case, the alleged acquaintance asked him to take a screenshot of an SMS that would come to him from Instagram and send it to him, so that he could recover his account. But the message was actually to “recover” Martinez’s account. When he sent her the SMS capture with the code, he lost control of his account.
From that moment they began to publish stories from their profile that encouraged their followers to invest with a supposed broker named Jennifer. âI just invested âŹ200 ($208) and got back âŹ2,000 ($2,083) within 3 hours of investing,â one such post stated.
From INCIBE they told us that they had received consultations with similar cases and they point out that the purpose of these account hacks may be their use to spread “alleged fraudulent investments in cryptocurrencies.”
Tips to avoid hacking of our profile
INCIBE advises not to follow the indications that arrive in messages of a suspicious, fraudulent nature or of unknown origin. They emphasize that these messages do not pose a threat as long as their instructions are not followed (such as clicking on links or sending information) and personal or bank details are not provided.
Miguel Ăngel Lucero GarcĂa, expert in cybersecurity and collaborator of cursed.esindicates that on an occasion like this we can contact our acquaintance by another means to verify that it is he who is requesting the information.
In the event that our profile has been hacked, the specialist recommends that we notify our contacts of the attack and report it to the authorities.
To recover our account, we must follow the instructions of Instagram. We can also follow the advice of the platform to increase the security of our profile.
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