Here’s an example of a verification badge scam email sent to the owners of pillow business, Cuddle Buddy.Īn example of a Meta verified phishing email The solution They may request that you don’t change your profile data, like username or password, until the change has taken effect in order to gain enough time to break into your account. In this scenario, hackers send a private message or email that offers a chance to add a verified badge, linking to a deceitful website that collects your login information. While valuable, this account feature is also at the center of another social engineering that hackers use to break into Instagram. You’re probably familiar with verified badges, the blue pins at the top of Instagram profiles that have been authenticated by the social network. Deceitful verified badge offers The tactic To help influencers and business owners protect their Instagram accounts, below we breakdown 6 tactics hackers use to extract personal information and bypass 2-factor authentication. The hacking figure for all accounts, not just creator accounts, is much higher.Įvery year, cybercriminals generate over $3 billion in revenue from social media attacks alone and hacking constitutes a large portion of these malicious incidents. How many Instagram accounts get hacked a year?Īccording to Notch's data, an Instagram creator account gets hacked every 10 minutes on average - meaning over 50,000 creator accounts get hacked every year.
