By REBECCA RUTHERFORD
For the Los Alamos Daily Post
So the other day I got an Instagram notification and it was not the usual “your cat pic has gotten 3 likes” it was “random account would like to supervise your account”. What??
Curious, I looked at the notification to check it out, but it had already been rescinded as there was no request to be found. Still, this is a creepy new Instagram scam to watch out for.
What are Instagram supervision tools? According to the Instagram site:
Supervision is a set of tools and insights that parents and guardians can use to help support their teens (ages 13-17) on Instagram.
Supervision is optional, and both the parent and the teen must agree to participate. It can be removed at any time by either person. The other person will be notified if you remove supervision.
If a teen opts in to supervision, the parent account can monitor, set time limits, and view information about the account. It doesn’t appear there is anything that would let a supervisor say change a password, or do anything else particularly meaningful, but it could definitely give them some insights into your account, and possibly allow them to set a time limit to effectively lock you out of your account. I am guessing this is one of those things where they are hoping that enough people won’t be paying attention and will end up clicking “yes” on the request, allowing them to gain some access and possibly help them in getting control of your account.
Be cautious with any odd requests on Instagram, whether it’s a “supervision” request, or even just a follow/friend request or message from an unknown account. Frequently they use these requests as a way to get in, to build trust, and to try to either trick you out of money or sensitive information.
Another social media scam to look out for is the “brand ambassador” scam. These scams especially target teens, but can target anyone. An odd account will reach out to the user offering to pay them or give them free products to be a “brand ambassador” for their product. Either they will try to scam you out of personal information, or money by offering “free” products that you only need to pay shipping and handling for. The product either will never show up, or will be poor quality.
If a bad actor does take control of your account, it can be really difficult to get back in, and they can use the account to try to trick your friends and family by pretending to be you. Many of these scams are NFT (non-fungible token) or cryptocurrency themed All will end with a loss of money. Bad actors can also just steal your picture and set up a fake account as you, with a slightly different name. If your “followers” or “friends” are set to public, they then have a list of people they can try to scam. So keep in mind if you get a request from someone you are already friends with, it is likely a scam.
One recommendation I have for all of your accounts, social media or not, is to use two factor authentication for the account, either an app on your phone, by text message, or a physical key. This will help secure your account as this second piece of information (authentication code) is required in addition to your password if someone is trying to log in to your account from a new location. Also, never reuse passwords across accounts, if you do this it becomes really easy to break into multiple accounts at once if a single account is compromised.
Stay safe online, and pay attention to what you are clicking, and also to any odd follow or friend requests on social media sites. If it seems “sus”, trust your guts!
Editor’s note: Rebecca Rutherford works in information technology at Los Alamos National Laboratory.