Instagram’s potential for users being scammed

It seems the high number of users of Instagram has attracted the attention of hackers and scammers, according to Wired, the online technology magazine.

The platform, it says, “Instagram is a frequent objective for scammers trying to take over your account and get you to send them money, as well as for shilling cryptocurrency scams”.

Followers for a particular person, product or service can grow quickly on Instagram, making users more vulnerable to attempts to part them from their money, although the platform does have a post on its website detailing types of scams to watch out for.

They include loan and investment scams such as cryptocurrency scams, competitions and giveaway scams, job scams involving fake job ads, phishing scams to gain access to your account, and counterfeit products like fake iPhones and Apple Watches.

The advice is to never, ever click on a link in a message, even if it appears to come from a friend or someone you trust.

Giveaways that it is suspect may include, spelling errors, poor English, typos or links taking you away from the app.

One of the leading malware protection companies, Malwarebytes, also warns: ““Fraudsters abuse the Instagram Stories feature, posting scams there that autodelete after 24 hours. The scam is hidden behind their profile picture; you won’t see it in the main collection of images.

Among the ways to protect yourself from scamming are never clicking on links in messages, checking under “about” for when the profile was created, ensuring your settings are private and of course, having a secure password, preferably with two factor authentication.