Instagram became the latest in a long line of services over the years to offer users two-factor authentication.
Tag Archives: Instagram
Protect Your Instagram Account From Spambots
Comments that have nothing to do with the photo you’ve posted, followers that don’t seem completely human despite their profile picture, messages from unknown accounts containing suspicious links or offering to help you get followers… It’s likely that you or some of your friends and maybe even the social media manager at your company have run up against this kind of thing on Instagram.
Spambots continue to be a major headache for the Facebook-owned social network that has over 600 million users. According to a study carried out by Italian researchers, 8% of Instagram accounts are false.
This is a blight on the company’s image, and has led to some embarrassing occurrences, like the time when spammers inundated feeds with a multitude of pornography. Apart from that, there are plenty of brands that use bots to swell the numbers of their followers, a practice that Instagram prohibits. So what can you do about this?
Instagram offers its users a few tools to report spam. The user can delete a comment that she considers offensive and report it, block a user or inform the social network that a profile or a publication is potentially suspicious. For example, if you see that a user does not share photos, follows hundreds of people and only posts comments with links, it could well be a ‘spammer’, although generally try to hide it using an attractive profile photo.
Recently, the social network has included new options to protect privacy. If you’ve decided to make your account private (which is advisable if you don’t want strangers browsing through your photos), then you can now remove followers without having to block them.
Also, all Instagram users can now use an automatic filter that eliminates comments which include a word considered offensive by the community or by the user. Just go to Options, Comments, and Hide inappropriate comments. In fact, you can disable comments on photos and videos altogether.
On the other hand, if an unknown follower sends you a direct message, it is best not to click on the link. It could be a bot sending a malicious ‘link’. It is also possible that its intention is to start a phishing attack.
Improving Instagram account privacy by adding two-step verification, using a strong password, and being careful about sharing content are other tips to avoid running into security problems with your personal or company accounts. And of course, if your using any social network from work computers, Panda Security’s advanced cybersecurity solutions for companies could be a great help in preventing spam from leading to the downloading of malware.
The post Protect Your Instagram Account From Spambots appeared first on Panda Security Mediacenter.
How to know if your Instagram got hacked & more
“Has my Instagram account been hacked?” is a question you’re likely to not ask until after the fact.
The post How to know if your Instagram got hacked & more appeared first on Avira Blog.
Bug Hunter Found Ways to Hack Any Instagram Accounts
How to hack an Instagram account?
The answer to this question is difficult to find, but a bug bounty hunter just did it without too many difficulties.
Belgian bug bounty hunter Arne Swinnen discovered two vulnerabilities in image-sharing social network Instagram that allowed him to brute-force Instagram account passwords and take over user accounts with minimal efforts.
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Both
Instagram Patches Brute-Force Authentication Flaws
Facebook paid researcher Arne Swinnen a $5,000 bounty for a pair of authentication vulnerabilities in Instagram that enabled brute-force attacks against usernames and passwords.
This 10-year-old Boy becomes the youngest Bug Bounty Hacker
“Talent has no Age Limit”
That’s what I said for a 10-year-old Finnish boy on our official Facebook page while sharing his recent achievement with our readers i.e. Winning $10,000 bug bounty from Instagram.
Last Tuesday when we at The Hacker News first acknowledged this talented boy and the flaw he discovered in image-sharing social network Instagram, I did not have an idea that the Facebook
Facebook Fixes Instagram Vulnerability That Opened 1M Accounts to Compromise
Facebook was quick to fix an issue earlier this month that could’ve let an attacker break into four percent of all active, locked accounts.
Popular apps: To trust or not to trust?
Everytime you ask an Android smartphone user what he thinks about the utility of these devices, you will hear the same old story about the many functions it has and how the various apps can make life easier. But does an user really know what risks does this kind of comfort has?
The post Popular apps: To trust or not to trust? appeared first on Avira Blog.
Instagram Adds Two-Step Verification to Prevent Account from being Hacked
Hijacking an online account is not a complicated procedure, not at least in 2016.
Today, Instagram confirmed that the company is in the process to roll out two-factor authentication for its 400 Million users.
It is impossible to make your online accounts hack-proof, but you can make them less vulnerable.
Then what you can do to protect yourselves from hackers?
Several companies provide more enhanced steps like Encrypted Channel Services, Security Questions, Strict Password Policy and so on.
But, what would you do if a hacker had somehow managed to access your accounts’ passwords?
Since the online accounts do not have an intelligent agent inbuilt to verify whether the person is the legit driver of the account; beyond a username and password match.
Hence the concept of Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) born out!
Jumbos like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon have already blended the 2FA feature with their services to tackle account hijacking.
2-Factor Authentication or two-step verification is an additional security mechanism that certifies the user is legit after clearing dual identification step i.e. a randomly generated security code would be provided to the user via call/SMS for authentication.
2-Factor Authentication eliminates the hackers to intrude into your online accounts (even if they have your usernames and passwords).
Now, the Multimedia sharing Giant Instagram also joined the league by implementing two-step verification.
Better late than Never:
However, the decision to roll out 2FA feature could be criticized as it’s parent company Facebook had already implemented it five years back.
The current users could not expect the new two-step verification feature to get released soon, as the company had mentioned that they would slowly release the phone verification feature.
But yes, there is good news for Singapore Residents. As the first roll would be out for Singaporeans.
Earlier, Instagram hacking was a deja vu as many videos and images of celebrities leaked online in the yesteryears.
Hackers could create havoc such as hijacking or deletion of Instagram Accounts, flooding the account with illegit contents and much more. Taylor Swift was one of such victims of the Instagram hack.
To save yourself from hackers you are recommended to enable 2-Factor Authentication when the Instagram security feature as soon as rolls for your country.
Facebook, Researcher Spar Over Instagram Vulnerabilities
Facebook is at odds with a security researcher over a number of Instagram vulnerabilities that allowed the researcher to access SSL and other private keys, as well as user and employee data.