By filling out a form, the purpose of the operation is to collect personal data.
Beware of this new scam that affects a platform owned by the company Meta. Led by hackers, a major campaign ofphishing by email targets French users ofInstagramreveals this Thursday, August 25 the specialized site Numerama.
Hackers trick Instagram users into believing they can get a verified account by filling out a fake form. Believing therefore to take steps to obtain this status, the pirates’ operation aims to seize users’ personal data. According to Numerama, more than 2000 emails were sent each day. This operation, in progress since the end of July 2022, was denounced by Vade, a cybersecurity company.
What does this scam look like?
For those who wish to obtain “Instagram certification”, the message received invites the user to click on a link. On this one, iYou must give your identifiers and fill out a form with your name, first name, address, email, telephone number and password. Once the operation is done, a message informs the user that the information will be verified and that Instagram will contact you within 48 hours. Of course, that never happens. The data recovered by the hackers can be resold or reused for other sites.
So to avoid falling into the trap, it is important to know that thesocial network never sends emailthe subject of which is a certification application, until a user requests it.