Scammers have compromised The North Face’s verified Instagram account for Chile to run a copyright infringement phishing scam.
Instagram has over 1 billion active users and that makes the photo and video-sharing social networking service from Facebook a lucrative target for hackers. Lately, a verified Instagram account has been targeting unsuspecting users with copyright infringement phishing scam aiming at their account credentials.
In the phishing scam, a verified Instagram account named The North Face Chile with 146,000 followers has been caught sending fake copyright notices in users’ inbox claiming that one of their posts violates the network’s copyright policy and requires feedback or their account will be closed in 24 hours.
See: “I think you appear in this video” phishing scam hijacks Facebook accounts
According to Fstoppers who spotted the scam also received a message from the scammer. The message contained a phishing link setup solely to steal the login credentials of Instagram users.
Screenshot of the phishing message:
Hi Instagram User!
Copyright infringement ! A copyright violation has been detected in a post on your account. If you think copyright infringement is wrong, you should provide feedback. Otherwise, your account will be closed within 24 hours. You can give feedback from the link below. Thank you for your understanding.
The “Next” tab redirects the victim to a phishing page asking to sign in with their login credentials which are immediately transferred to the attacker.
See: Database with millions of Instagram influencers’ info leaked online
Since the message looks legitimate and comes from a verified account, chances are that a novice user may fall for it. However, Hackread.com‘s readers and tech-savvies can identify mistakes in the content of the messages such as no explanation of which post is involved copyright infringement, exclamation mark after “Hi Instagram User” and “You can give feedback ‘from’ the link below.”
Hackread.com can confirm that the Instagram account used in this scam belongs to The North Face’s domain for Chile. The North Face is an American outdoor recreation product company known for producing clothing, footwear, and outdoor equipment.
It is unclear when was The North Face Chile’s Instagram was compromised and defaced.
Although at the time of publishing this article, the phishing domain was taken offline, Hackread.com can also confirm that another phishing domain was also running a similar scam. The good news is that the second domain has been taken down as well.
How to identify a phishing scam?
The standard signs to identify a phishing scam are mentioned below:
1- No name for the addressed person (Instagram will always use the name you registered with the account).
2- Punctuation (exclamation mark)
3- Drive of urgency and time limits
4- Dubious link that doesn’t match the platform’s domain
5- It will be riddled with signs.
If you are on Instagram watch out for this scam and report any malicious activity to the company.
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