It all happened in one night. “I went to sleep and when I got up they had me hacked my personal Facebook account, which was connected to that of our study on Instagram. And I don’t know what they did with her, but it must have been something illegal, because the company blocked my account, saying that I had done something against the rules. ” In seven hours of sleep, the Italian Francesco Mainardi had lost count de Mr Lawrence, your design consulting studio. And he never got it back. “The only way to contact Facebook and Instagram in this case is through a form. I don’t know what they do with it, but they answered me after two days telling me that after their checks they confirmed their decision to cancel my account, without giving me any explanation or the possibility of proving that it was not me. “
Theft of Instagram accounts is frequent and constant. In December, Verne published an article in which it assured that in the last weeks dozens of illustrators and photographers had been kidnapped. Some had been asked for a ransom, at least one had paid and it had not been returned. They had tried to get them back by claiming Instagram or their mother house, Facebook, but most had failed.
But there are no official figures on how many are stolen and how many of them are recovered. Instagram ensures that it does not handle this data and that is why they cannot provide numbers. If you send them some questions on the subject, the answer comes in a email that can only be used in context, without quoting or attributing to a spokesperson. To summarize, it states that they invest significantly in technology and equipment to improve the security of the platform. That in addition to conducting internal investigations, third-party audits and implementing its Bug Bounty program, which offers rewards to those who find and report security flaws, they work with other technology companies and academic institutions to identify and respond to threats. In addition, they say, they recently took a number of steps to prevent malicious behavior including deleting accounts that attempt to impersonate Instagram, returning access to many accounts to their rightful owners, and improving their systems to more effectively detect such behavior.
But that didn’t help Francesco Maniari. He is one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small businesses that relied heavily on Instagram as a showcase for prospects and suddenly found themselves without that source of income. He is convinced that if his account had been with a large company, one of those that invests a lot of money in advertising, the treatment would have been different. “After two years he had 4,500 followers. It was very important to us because we had our portfolio there. Our website is much more basic, the activity was on Instagram. We had the whole history of the studio there. It was our job. And one thing that you realize is that all the content that you upload to the page does not belong to you, it is from Instagram. The amazing thing is that you talk to a bot, the bot He answers you, and that’s it, ”he laments.
Some are easier to recover than others
“They fix it quickly for us because we have a special relationship with Facebook,” confirms the head of networks of a large company on the condition that his name or that of his employer is not mentioned. “We are in the best relationship with them and we have a direct line. The moment someone steals one of our accounts, I call them and they write to Palo Alto. It is as is, “he explains,” pure plug. But it is logical, it is still a private company that cares about its sources of income and takes better care of its best clients ”, he concludes.
“The act itself of recovering the account can be done in two ways, depending on whether or not you have an active advertising campaign. We have contact with Instagram, but when they are relevant accounts, with advertising or public figures, it is much easier. When it is a small content generator, the work is more manual ”, says Selva Orejón, director of On Branding, a company dedicated to protecting the digital identity of people and companies on the Internet. They are in charge of everything that entails the cyber investigation of the attacks suffered by their clients. From companies that are suffering smear campaigns against abused people. A part of that service is recovering accounts hacked. Orejón confirms that these claims are processed by bots and that many never pass for a person. “We have a very jevi case of a person who had 25,000 euros of monthly investment, which is a stupid thing for an SME, and they do not open the chat of business. We have tried with the assigned operator and it closes the chat. I think the problem is that before us it has passed through too many hands, the community manager, the user… and Facebook does not know which request to attend ”.
Because, Orejón assures, the actions of the users do not help either. “A classic is that they have opened another account at full speed with the same name and the same address of email. There, a confusion is already created that makes everything much more difficult. We tell them that when we enter, they no longer intervene ”.
“What you have to do is report it,” recommends Soledad Alcaide, head of social networks for EL PAÍS. “Account theft is constant. The hackers They are very smart. They steal a profile, put on the Instagram logo and send you a message that has all the appearance of being from the platform that carries a link and a threat to close your account if you don’t react within 24 hours. If you click you are lost. There are many people dedicating themselves to that, and it is logical that it is difficult to respond to all requests quickly “
In that everyone seems to agree. Much of the problem is that Instagram cannot cope with all the complaints. “That is so,” says Orejón. “The same people who help us in Silicon Valley sometimes tell us that they can’t keep helping us because they are saturated. Sometimes, when we have managed to talk to operators on the phone, they have told us that they are at 30% of what they would need for the service ”.
What benefit can a cybercriminal get from taking over the account of a small Italian design company with 4,500 followers? “They can extort money from you. If it doesn’t work, use your account to scam another ”, says Orejón. “To Jaime Lorente [el actor de Élite que ahora interpreta El Cid] they published posts from a fake sale of sunglasses. They didn’t want your data, they wanted your account. Those of Blanca Fernández Ochoa and Cayetana Guillén Cuervo used them to pose as Instagram support ”.
Orejón assures that the methods have different geographical origins. “Those who pose as support come from Turkey. From a specific area, in addition. Those of the Ivory Coast prefer the sextortion. They look at the photos you have sent and if they find something compromised they ask you for money ”.
The accounts are recovered or not. The pressure of the followers can serve to get them to pay attention to you. Companies like On Branding charge a minimum of 350 euros if they manage to recover them. But the safest thing, in that there is a coincidence, is not to lose it. Be cautious and be careful out there.
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