Aaron Johnson recently tried to get into his Instagram account but found out it was locked. He called his brother, Jake, for help. Jake asked if Aaron had recently received an email from a “friend” who needed help getting back into their Instagram account.
Aaron said he did, and he’d also clicked on a link sent to him. Lights out! A fraudster, who was no friend, had hacked into Aaron’s Instagram account to try to steal his personally identifiable information (PII).
This case is fictional but represents a common example of a recent social media account hack and takeover scam. The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) says fraudsters are increasingly taking over Facebook and Instagram accounts to steal PII for identity
theft crimes. The ITRC reported that it had received 320 inquiries about the scam in 2021, but that number had skyrocketed to nearly 500 through the first quarter of 2022. (See “ITRC: Identity Criminals Add New Twist to Facebook & Instagram Account
Hack Scams: Pose as ‘Friends’ of the Victim,” Identity Theft Resource Center, April 4, 2022.)
In the past, fraudsters used bitcoin scams to hack into the social media accounts of victims, but recently they’ve been sending email messages masquerading as “friends” of victims to proliferate the scam.
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