Social Media gets hacked when you get bigger

[Snowbro]

I just had a 13k follower photo account stolen, then perma banned in a 5min window. I have friends that had the same thing happen once they got around 10-15k. All of us have had their "2 factor authentication" on and never got a text code or anything. I also know people that had large youtube channels stolen & or destroyed by hackers. The companies never care to help; if the hackers do something bad on your account, they will never un-ban it. 

I am glad I don't do content creation for a living, it is way too risky to build on someone else's platform. I think I will make a website called: eosuhd.com instead. 

 

[ntblowz]

Max got his youtube acc hacked too, i think they only restored his monetization because of potential PR impact since he make video about it.

[JurijTurnsek]

Please share more details - did you link you two factor authentication to you phone number? Or do you use authentication app? Was your password stolen in some data breach before that? Do you use a password manager with random password for each account?

[IronFilm]

On 12/24/2018 at 9:27 AM, Snowbro said:

I think I will make a website called: eosuhd.com instead. 

That is too shortsighted, I'd recommend the eos16k.com domain name instead. 

[kaylee]

On 12/23/2018 at 1:27 PM, Snowbro said:

I just had a 13k follower photo account stolen, then perma banned in a 5min window. I have friends that had the same thing happen once they got around 10-15k. All of us have had their "2 factor authentication" on and never got a text code or anything. I also know people that had large youtube channels stolen & or destroyed by hackers. The companies never care to help; if the hackers do something bad on your account, they will never un-ban it. 

I am glad I don't do content creation for a living, it is way too risky to build on someone else's platform. I think I will make a website called: eosuhd.com instead. 

 

dude! this is crazy!

how did this happen?? random hacker? what is the hacker's goal – extortion? or just destruction?

ive always felt that to use social media you need to treat it like it could all be gone overnight. i find this being proven more and more and more and more, i hear these stories almost every day!

what tha heck!

[Snowbro]

I read that it's happened a lot since fall, they hijack a bunch over 10k and pump out their message, whatever it is. Mine got banned within 5 min of them taking it over. 

[Snowbro]

I got my IG account back finally, it was about a 10% chance. I am down 900 followers; I think they must have posted something really odd and spammy, in the short time they had it, before it was banned. Glad to have it back though, hopefully it isn't shadowbanned. 

[JurijTurnsek]

In my limited knowledge SIM hijacking would be the only (publicly known) possible way to intercept your code text message, but that would probably render your whole SIM card useless (I guess it didn't). Also, any hacking that is not done by one-button tools is probably way too labor intensive to be used to take down an account with merely (not trying to offend) a five figure follower count.

I might be wrong and there is a tool readily available to hack an IG account with 2 factor authentication and some IG competitor is paying someone to take these accounts down.

This should be alarming and it is advised that 2 factor authentication is not done via text message, but rather via app with a hash code. As for security, if IG cannot pull off secure 2 factor authentication, you are a lot less likely to be able to do so on your own platform.

I, for one, believe that 2 factor authentication is a incredibly secure option for personal use - provided that you use a secure password in the first place (it was not hacked in any previous leaks). I don't buy your story as it is written here, there must a small step missing, or else IG would be in some hot water right now. Celebrity IG accounts would be hacked daily if it were this easy.

[BTM_Pix]

24 minutes ago, Snowbro said:

I got my IG account back finally, it was about a 10% chance. I am down 900 followers; I think they must have posted something really odd and spammy, in the short time they had it, before it was banned. Glad to have it back though, hopefully it isn't shadowbanned. 

Good news that you got it back.

Is there no way you can see what they posted while they had it ?

Be interesting to know what it was they posted that caused 7% to unfollow you but the other 93% to think it was OK?

I suspect that is what is behind a lot of these hacks, so they can use it as a way to test opinions and use the data to shape more sinister social media manipulations as per Brexit and before you know it, your country will vote to impose economic sanctions on itself and trumpet a loss of freedom to travel and work overseas as some sort of huge victory.

Or it might have just been porn.

[Snowbro]

I never got a code, that is what I don't understand about it. I got an email from IG saying someone logged into your account and changed the profile information. I did not click on that email, as I did not know if it was phishing. I looked at my account from a different account I was logged into (personal), and my account I mention here, was gone. I then tried to log in and it said it had been banned for violating their terms of service. 

The only thing I can think of that happened is: I switched my phone number around between my personal and the account mentioned. It said that 2 factor authentication will not actually work, until the number is removed from the other account. I changed the number to my wife's number, then put mine on my big account. It never gave me another notification, it says 2 factor is on and my number is there. 

There are articles by big news companies, that have done research and found that some accounts have been hijacked with 2 factor on. There could be a backdoor leaked idk. 

5 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

Good news that you got it back.

Is there no way you can see what they posted while they had it ?

Be interesting to know what it was they posted that caused 7% to unfollow you but the other 93% to think it was OK?

I suspect that is what is behind a lot of these hacks, so they can use it as a way to test opinions and use the data to shape more sinister social media manipulations as per Brexit and before you know it, your country will vote to impose economic sanctions on itself and trumpet a loss of freedom to travel and work overseas as some sort of huge victory.

Or it might have just been porn.

Might have been a story, I don't see any new posts on it. Supposedly, there have been Russians that have comedered thousands of low-mid level accounts and broadcast a message. I am not sure if I believe that, something like Mashable posted that. Who knows, I don't depend on it for a living so meh 

[Kisaha]

Happened to some friends too.

One friend of ours had a small jewelry business and they hacked her IG and posted porn.

One other friend's account recently hijacked from someone in Turkey and asks him money to give access to his account. This case is still in investigation by the special e-force (a police department here specialized in e-crime). Next week we will know more.

There are other cases I know from Malay and Russian hackers.

[JurijTurnsek]

Let's not get too excited here - most hacking is a simple matter of social engineering (coning someone into giving you their credentials) and the consequence of insufficient technological knowledge. Similar to leaving your house key under some doormat.

Smartphones and social media are ubiquitous now, but the knowledge on how to manage you passwords etc. is not taught anywhere, so this "hacking" is going to happen a lot. Since you guys already know how to post on message boards, read up on password managers, 2 factor verification etc. and you'll be fine.