Although social media giants have been taking several steps to
safeguard the platform from scams, those responsible for these scams are
also finding new ways to target the victims.
Instagram, a popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook is one
of the platforms where a scam has been making rounds and Sophos, a
computer security firm has warned users against it. It says that hackers
are this time spreading a scam that falsely tells users that they are
violating the Instagram copyright laws.
So if you are an active Instagram user or have a verified profile,
you don’t want to see a copyright infringement email or a message coming
from Instagram that may permanently or temporarily deactivate your
account. This indeed tempts the users to click on the click in the mail,
which leads to them becoming a part of the scam.
In the screenshot shared by the website, it is seen that the false
message of copyright infringement comes with an ‘Instagram’ logo on top
followed by a text message saying ‘We’ve detected contents in your
account that will violate copyright laws. Your account will be
deactivated within 48 hours unless you provide feedback. As Instagram,
we respect copyrights and take care to protect copyrights.’
This message is followed by a button that says ‘Appeal’.
To make it look more legit, the message in the browser shows the
URL starting with https://instagram.copyrightinfringementappeal…
However, as explained by Sophos, if you get the right to use a domain
such as example.com, you can also create subdomains such as
www.example.com, anytext.youlike.example.com or even
instagram.copyrightinfringementappeal.example.com.
And since the URL is so long, it doesn’t show the full link on the
address bar of the phone. Because the user just sees nothing more than
“https://instagram.copyrightinfringement…” he/she believes it to be a
legit message from Instagram.
Once you click, the next web page asks to give your username, birth
date and the password to make sure it’s you. In reality, these boxes
will give hackers the information as you feed it. Once you feed the
information, the page shows a ‘bogus’ web page showing the loading
animation followed by a green tick with a message ‘Your copyright
objection notice has been submitted. You will be contacted by email
after 24 hours.’ After this, the users will be navigated to the real
Instagram login page.
What happens when Instagram removes the content in real?
In this case, users get a notification from Instagram featuring the
name and the email address of the person who reported the post. If
users think the content shouldn’t be removed, they can follow up with
them to resolve the issue.
One can tap on the URL and see the entire link to check if its a
legit link or not. Users can also check the email sender’s address
before clicking the link.
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