Instagram is a popular photo-sharing web-based media platform that allows you to share photos and videos with your friends and family. Hacking Instagram accounts, like hacking any other well-known web-based media platform, is a growing source of cash for cybercriminals. This post will go over the five most common hacking techniques and what you can do to prevent fraudsters from accessing your Instagram account.
Instagram Hacks and Vulnerabilities:
- Weak Passwords
- Remote Keyloggers
- Phishing Emails
- Zero-Day Vulnerability
- Mobile Operating System Vulnerabilities
Weak Passwords
Hackers can easily hack Instagram accounts if your passwords are basic and commonly used, such as an epithet, phone number, partner’s name, or pet name, to mention a few possibilities. The hacker could launch a full-scale assault to obtain your secret key, and once they have it, they will do anything they want with your data.
How to Protect Against Weak Passwords?
Clients should choose a solid secret key that includes a mix of numbers, pictures, a space bar, and lower and capital letters. They should make sure their Instagram account’s secret key is unique and not the same as their use for other email or social media accounts. The risk of your record being compromised would be reduced due to this. HaveIBeenPwned.com is a popular service to verify if your documents have been compromised. You can check here to see whether your credentials have been revealed to others.
Remote Keyloggers
A remote keylogger is a “piece of software that lists everything you enter on your phone or computer and sends it to the someone who installed it” (The Zero Hack). When a keylogger is installed, whatever is typed (secret words, login credentials, bank information, and so on) is recorded and visible to the hacker. This is a mysterious method of hacking Instagram accounts for a hacker.
How to Protect Against Remote Keyloggers?
- Avoid using third-party keyboard apps.
- Avoid opening any connections or click on joins in the email message since a keylogger could be placed in the link.
- Introduce anti-spyware software to assist in identifying, handicapping, and quarantining programming-based keyboard loggers (Norton)
Phishing Emails
An attacker will send you an email pretending to be from Instagram and urging you to click on a link to reset your secret word or finish some review. Regardless of the content of the email, when you click on the link and input any credentials. The aggressor gets access to your personal information and effectively controls your Instagram account. In 2019, a hacking group obtained the identities of important people by sending phishing messages to their accounts, claiming that they would be eligible for Verified identification on their Instagram profiles. The email contains a link that asks the client to authenticate their Instagram account by entering their credentials. The assailant successfully obtained the certificates of the high-profile accounts and duped clients into believing they were checked. This is another method for gaining access to Instagram accounts.
How to Protect Against Phishing Attacks?
Clients should be educated and informed about the characteristics of phishing messages so that they can recognize them. Here are some options:
- Avoid tapping on any connections or opening any links from a shady email.
- Try not to enter personal information via a pop-up screen (note: real organizations would never ask for personal information via a pop-up screen).
- Keep an eye out for misspelled words in the email’s body.
Zero-Day Vulnerability
A zero-day flaw is a “product security flaw known to the product seller but does not have a fix in place to fix the flaw” that hackers could exploit (Norton). If a hacker discovers a zero-day vulnerability in Instagram, there could be real security risks for Instagram users and their data. This offers the coders an advantage because it’s an unseen flaw that hasn’t been openly publicized yet.
How to Protect against a Zero-Day Vulnerability?
Although it is hard to avoid zero-day vulnerabilities. You may take the necessary security precautions to prevent attackers from compromising Instagram. Here are a few examples:
- Make that you’re using the most recent version of Instagram
- Empower two-factor authentication.
Mobile Operating System Vulnerabilities
If the mobile operating system has flaws, hackers can hack into the phones themselves, but they can also infiltrate Instagram. The great majority of the exploited flaws could have arisen from zero-day flaws.
How to Protect against Operating System Vulnerabilities
- When an update is available, try to redesign your functioning framework.
- Try to avoid installing apps from unknown sources and instead rely on trusted sources on the app store.