Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Instagram Bombarded with Fruit Attack

Instagram Fruit Spam

We all love showing the world our captured moments through Instagram.  This weekend many of you have noticed a plethora of fruit filled pictures popping up on the photo-sharing network.  Those photo's weren't all of your friends showing off the delicious seasonal fruit they were enjoying.  It was a mass spam attack that seized the network!  So don't give in to these photos with messages advertising for a great new miracle fruit diet.


The Juice


Fruit filled photographs began showing up in users' feeds, linking to fake BBC pages.  With headlines like, "Tropical Fruit Burns 17 Pounds in 22 Days. "  Or, "I saw it on the Dr. Oz show, this really works!"

These images were linked using the URL shortening service Bit.ly, disguising the real alias.  Now Bit.ly has issued a warning on the link, and Instagram confirmed the attack via email, according to a report on GigaOM.  Users have been experiencing the spam incident with the unwanted photos blasting on their accounts.  "Our security and spam team quickly took actions to secure the accounts involved, and the posted photos are being deleted.” reports GigaOM.

The Facebook-owned company admitted that "a small portion of our users experienced a spam incident where unwanted photos were posted from their accounts involved, and posted photos are being deleted."  The distorted view of a  "small portion" are more like 30,000 clicks to these deceiving photos.  There are over 130 million users on Instagram world-wide,  this photo-bomb is the first spam attack on the app.  A quick password reset and a little knowledge of who usually posts what kind of photos, can keep your personal information and computer safe.


Get the Facts



  •  The free photo sharing app allows users to "filter" their image and share with friends through social networks.

  •  When Instagram launched as an iPhone app, it hit one million users in two years

  •  April 2012 Instagram was aquired by Facebook for 1 million $ in funds and stock

  •  About 58 photographs are uploaded to Instagram each second

  •  One new user is introduced to Instagram per second
Please visit http://www.hyphenet.com/blog/ for more blog posts on the latest technology and IT security news.


References:

Instagram hit by fruity spam attack
http://www.welivesecurity.com/2013/07/01/instagram-hit-by-fruity-spam-attack/
Published on July 1, 2013

Beware of Fruit: Instagram Experiences a Massive Fruit Diet Spam Attack
http://petapixel.com/2013/06/30/instagram-experiences-its-first-massive-spam-attack/
Published on Jun 30, 2013

Facts about Instagram
http://www.seemycity.com/about/some-facts-about-instagram/

Image courtesy of [adamr,rakratchada torsap] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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