Your Social Media Account could be cloned by scammers

guest · Sep 12, 2020

Attack of the Instagram clones
Could your social media account be spoofed, why would anybody do it, and what can you do to avoid having a doppelgänger?
August 17, 2020
https://www.welivesecurity.com/2020/08/17/attack-instagram-clones/

Social media has some great advantages, such as keeping in touch with loved ones and sharing experiences with friends, but like almost anything on the internet, it can be easily abused. With some creative thinking and a little luck on the side, it is possible for it to be used as a vehicle to steal money from unwitting victims.

I had heard stories of account cloning, but I always assumed people would check with the account holder via another form of communication or at least think twice before sending money to an account they only recently connected with. Sadly, people are still being caught out with this scam and I want to help reach those who may be unaware of how the con works.
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As with all my ways of getting a security message across, I needed to conduct a little experiment to test this scam in the real world and see first-hand the ease with which it can work.
And here is my cloned Instagram account [...]

The goal of the test was to create a good enough back story to quickly request money without raising suspicion.
What I found most disconcerting was how quickly it all escalated and I was able to trick the target into thinking it was genuine with no extra checks required.
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This scam is not solely limited to Instagram – I have also seen this occur on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – so make sure you keep an eye out for cloned accounts
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guest · Sep 12, 2020

'Scammer cloned my business on Instagram'
September 11, 2020
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54026002

She had just discovered the Instagram page for her beauty-product business, which she had spent 12 years building up, had been cloned.

"For some reason the scammers tagged me in one of the photos, which seems like it was probably a mistake," she says.
And this alerted her to the cloned page, where the only discernible difference from the legitimate Little Soap Co's page was an extra "o" at the end of the name.
PayPal details
As well as making a carbon copy of the page, the scammers were intent on making some money.
"The account went private and we discovered that they spent the entire evening on bank-holiday Monday contacting hundreds of our followers, who had entered our latest competition, saying they had won and asking for PayPal details," Emma says.
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And trying to persuade Instagram to remove the fake page proved frustrating.
[...] Facebook, which is a good shop window for many businesses, is very different," Emma says."It feels like an iron fortress.
Fake accounts
Facebook told BBC News: "We have removed the accounts brought to our attention for inauthentic behaviour.
But account cloning remains a problem for both Facebook and Instagram, with individuals targeted alongside businesses.

Twitter and LinkedIn have to tackle similar scams.
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In a blog, security specialist at anti-virus company ESET Jake Moore explains how he copied his own Instagram account in an afternoon - and, with a sob story about being locked out of his bank account as well as social media, persuaded one of his followers to send him money
He had the following advice: [...]

Emma is certainly planning on keeping a very close eye on any suspicious activity around her brand and has since found another cloned account and two cloned versions of her personal Instagram page - all now removed.
"The whole thing is slightly sinister," she says
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Your Social Media Account could be cloned by scammers

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