In recent days, onBRANDING has detected several cases of Instagram profiles posing as young women, when in reality, the identity behind “the user” is an African male.
The objective of these accounts is to engage in conversation with men located in Spain, pretending to be a woman, in order to obtain intimate material with which to carry out financial extortion.
Modus operandi.
1. Profile creation.
The cyber-scammer copies the Instagram profile of a real user in detail who has no privacy restrictions. On Instagram, if you have a public profile, anyone can access your images and content and download them.
2. First contact with the victim.
Once the cybercriminal has created the profile on the social network (through identity theft, as mentioned), they attempt to initiate a conversation via DM with their chosen victims.
In these initial points of contact, the conversation and questions will be quite common and non-aggressive. The criminal’s primary intention is to gain the user’s trust and, in the process, “test” their ability to detect that it is a fake profile.
At this stage, the criminal is assessing whether the victim is likely to fall into the trap.
3. Moving communication to a more direct channel.
Once the victim becomes trusting, the cybercriminal offers the possibility of contacting them through a more direct channel, such as Hangouts.
This application belongs to Google, which means that, from the outset, the scammer already has the victim’s Gmail address and, of course, their trust.
4. The victim falls into the trap.
Through the Hangouts chat, the conversation can take various directions that, if made public, could harm the victim. Furthermore, the application offers the possibility of making video calls.
This is the most interesting feature for cyber-scammers, as during a conversation that may escalate in tone, the victim may share intimate images live.
It goes without saying that if the user has a romantic or professional relationship that could be affected by a scandal, if they fall into the trap, they will be the perfect target for sextortion.
5. Sextortion.
Once the cybercriminal has obtained sufficient evidence demonstrating an inappropriate conversation, or even better, intimate images of a sexual nature, they proceed to sextortion.
This means the victim must pay the amount of money requested by the criminal in exchange for the captured content not being released. If this content reaches the victim’s close circles, it can cause serious personal, professional, and reputational problems.
How do these communications flow on Instagram?
Prevention is key to avoiding becoming a victim of these scams. Excessive trust in users we do not know can lead to unfortunate consequences.
These types of cyber-scams can seriously damage the reputation of victims, as well as their personal and professional relationships.
If you have been a victim of scams or extortion on Instagram, please contact us. At onBRANDING, we are specialists in cyber investigation, cybersecurity, digital reputation, and social media.
