Instagram coordinates with other social media platforms, including Twitter and TikTok, to ban users involved in stealing hundreds of usernames with single words.
These short, desirable handles, known as ‘OG usernames’ (think of keywords like @Killer, @Sick and @Miracle), are valuable because they are eye-catching and give status; the people who first picked them up were early adopters. Cybercriminals buy and sell usernames on dedicated forums and messaging programs.
The crackdown, which began Thursday, follows Instagram’s investigation into ogusers.com, the primary forum in which these accounts are sold and traded. Instagram has discovered that stolen account names have been obtained through burglary, extortion, extortion and harassment – and can then be sold for as much as $ 40,000. Such manipulation has been largely unnoticed for years. (Ogusers.com was also the forum where the giant Twitter hack of old, which affected former President Barack Obama, Elon Musk and many other celebrities, was orchestrated.)
Ajay Pondicherry (38), a real estate software entrepreneur in Los Angeles, was one of Instagram’s first few thousand users, and could therefore easily claim the grip of @Ajay. Over the course of the year, people offered to buy or trade his username, but he always refused to give it up.
“It was a sign that I was one of the former instincts of Instagram. “I have always been a big fan of the product and that the handle just proved that I was on board early,” he said. “I appreciated it more when people tried to strike me and could buy and buy it. It has a closet. ‘
On 21 February 2019, Mr. Pondicherry him outside of his email accounts. Then his phone did not stop. When he checked his AT&T account the next day, his number was linked to a new phone.
What mr. Pondicherry experienced was a SIM exchange, in which an internet criminal exploits someone’s personal information to gain control of their phone number from a wireless provider, and then uses two-factor authentication to gain access to their personal accounts. Nadat mnr. Pondicherry regained control of his AT&T account and trying to log in to Instagram, he discovered that his handle, @Ajay, had been stolen by the hacker.
SIM swapping was many cybercriminals’ popular method of gaining valuable Instagram accounts and social media handles. (It was also the method hackers used to take over the Twitter account of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in 2019.)
But recently, cybercriminals have used harassment and threats in the pursuit of OG usernames. According to Instagram, the people behind the accounts banned Thursday – of which millions were followers – subjected the owners of popular Instagram handles to threats, revenge porn and violence.
Jackson, 22, the administrator of a meme account called @ hugeplateofketchup8, said he has already met hundreds of people who engage in this type of behavior online.
“Their main purpose is to enlarge their pages, and selling these OG usernames is a game for many of them,” he said. “Their goal is to do this to as many people as possible. Every meme page encountered one of these people. ”
Nadat mnr. Weimer on his own Instagram paid attention to these practices, he got an avalanche of harassment. “They sent me pictures of my house on Google Maps,” he said of his harassers. “They told me they wanted to rape and kill my parents. They said I would be sorry to do that. They sent me my address a lot and created an account that exposed me on Instagram, where they would just post and make up lies about me. ”
Instagram said nine cybercriminals were behind the unauthorized seizure of hundreds of Instagram accounts, but the ban on the platform includes not only these nine users, but intermediaries buying and selling accounts on ogusers.com and Telegram, a encrypted messaging app, help orchestrate. Many of the mediators are young people, including teenagers, who view short handles as status symbols.
“It’s like driving a fast car when cars were important,” said Dr. Argelinda Baroni, a clinical assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU Langone Health, said. ‘Children in general want to be empowered. Kids want to be cool. But children do very dangerous things to gain status. ”
After Instagram noticed a disturbing increase in account theft and increase in the methods used to obtain usernames, Instagram took action in 2020 and started working with TikTok and Twitter to identify accounts on different platforms.
“As part of our ongoing work to find and stop fraudulent behavior, we have recently recovered a number of TikTok usernames used for inappropriate account crunch,” a TikTok representative said in a statement. “We will continue to focus on the ever-evolving tactics of bad actors, including collaborating with third parties and others in the industry.”
Twitter confirmed that the company also banned users for violating the platform’s manipulation and spam policies. “This investigation was conducted in conjunction with Facebook,” a Twitter representative said.
Rachel Tobac, a hooker and CEO of SocialProof Security, which offers security training and workshops, said the pandemic has driven more young people into online communities where they can earn money and find companionship.
“It’s basically a lack of support and an increase in economic problems, specifically under Covid-19,” she said. “I want to emphasize that it is a societal challenge for these minors to fall so under cybercrime. We will always have criminals, but we are going to see people, especially minors, turn to cybercrime if there is a lack of support system or specific economic downturn that affects them. ”
Instagram has said they stop sending letters to individuals behind the theft of valuables and are working with local law enforcement agencies to hold those involved in criminal activities accountable.
Although Instagram previously banned meme accounts for violating terms of service, Thursday’s crackdown is the most public and decisive action Instagram has taken against people manipulating the financial gain platform. But Will Dyess, vice president of Dank Memes, an e-commerce and media company that runs several pages with prestigious usernames, said he was skeptical that attempts to steal the account would ever be fully weakened.
“Will @Stonks ever stop being a target? Probably not, especially not after last week, ”he said, referring to the GameStop frenzy. ‘There will always be a request for certain usernames, URLs. The real estate of the internet is ending. ”
Mr. Weimer said that Instagram’s account ban was a good first step, but that it is not the deeper issue: young users simply want to make money on the platform.
“I think the pandemic has caused many children to try to make money in any way, even if it’s sneaky,” he said. “They have more time on their phone, they are home more often, and many children have lost their part-time jobs.”
“If Instagram really wants to solve this problem,” Mr. Weimer continued, “they have to go from top to bottom and pay people who create content, so there is no reason for people to make money in other ways.”