Social media account hacking is happening on a massive scale. We all know someone close to us, we know businesses, or we have heard of famous people whose accounts have been hacked. But the vast majority do not report it.
When someone’s social media account (Instagram, Twitter, TikTok…) or email account (Gmail, Hotmail…) is hacked, the problem is not only that they become inactive, unable to access their social networks and unable to post. The truly serious problem is that a number of serious crimes may be taking place behind this hack. For this reason, it is very important to understand why it happened, when it happened, identify what crime you are a victim of, of course never give in to any attempt at blackmail or extortion, and finally report it to the police.
Crimes that may be committed when your accounts are hacked
- Offence of unlawful access to communications: when you no longer have access to your communications and someone is accessing your social networks without your consent, an offence of abusive access to a computer system is being committed, as set out in the Criminal Code.
- Identity impersonation offence: this occurs when someone, using your identity, pretends to be you in order to publish information or request information from another person. This also happens with individuals or small businesses that run their e-commerce, their online shop, through Instagram, and their account is being used to charge certain amounts because the person making the purchase believes that the company behind that social network is indeed that business, when it is not. In this way, they use identity impersonation to commit fraud.
- An extortion offence may be taking place: if someone contacts you and demands a sum of money for you to regain access to your account and your own information, an offence is being committed. You should not give in to this extortion and you should report it.
- Be careful with digital wallets or other payment systems such as PayPal, Apple Pay…: people are not securing their wallets and digital payment methods, so not only can they fall more easily for a scam, but third parties may also be accessing their wallet without them knowing.
- Offence of disclosure of secrets: once the criminal gains access to your social network, they may access information that they know, if made public, is very likely to make the person give in more quickly to extortion. They therefore threaten you so that this information is not made public, as in cases of sextortion, and if you do not give in, that is when they disclose certain information.
Who is behind these hacks?
At this point, there may still be people who think: “well, I do not care; what is the point of reporting it if it will not lead to anything, if the police are overwhelmed and will not be able to do anything.”
We must be clear that behind these crimes are organised crime groups, where each group has its role and is prepared to carry out different types of actions (crimes). It is a vast network, and the only way to stop it is through the work of the police, adopting self-protection habits, and increasing the number of reports.
It is not only about you; it is about the fact that the police will never have the capacity they should have if the number of reports does not increase.
Selva Orejón
Be careful if you decide not to report it
If you decide not to report the hacking of your accounts, you should bear these three very important points in mind:
- If they are impersonating your identity, depending on how they use it—if it is to carry out a scam—the offence could end up implicating you.
- If you do not report it, the police will never be properly resourced to deal with this type of crime and therefore will not be able to provide a stronger response.
- We must give the opportunity for all these criminals to be prosecuted.
In short, our recommendation is that you should report the hacking of your social media accounts, either through the police or the duty court, and preferably always with the support of a lawyer and professionals (we can prepare reports, provide you with all the protocols, and help you recover the account…).
Stopping these criminal networks is everyone’s job; otherwise there will be no way to stop them.
If you prefer, you can listen to this content in the following video:
