An ongoing investigation by Symantec has revealed an influx of Instagram scams over the past few months, luring users towards adult dating sites in order to earn a commission.
Symantec’s Security Response team detected an increasing number of fake profiles on the social photo-sharing platform, which having been posting photos copied from legitimate profiles. These profiles have been identified to use three approaches:
- Use the fake profile to follow users and like photos;
- Copy an existing profile and some of its photos;
- Use a profiles as an intermediary that contains a single photograph split into tiles to form a full photograph.
In each of the profile variations, the links lead users to a landing page for an adult dating website. Instagram users should be skeptical of unsolicited likes or follows from fake profiles, and report anything suspect to Instagram as spam.
More details about the scam are available here: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/influx-fake-instagram-profiles-luring-users-adult-dating-sites
