Social media influencers build and expand their business or brand through credibility and authenticity to their audience. For hackers, however, they could be seen as trophies. That’s what happened to a photographer with more than 15,000 followers on Instagram, when she had her account stolen.

A closer look into the incident revealed that the hacker got into her account through phishing. While it seemed straightforward enough, we also found that targeting popular Instagram profiles has become a modus for a certain group of Turkish-speaking hackers. And by abusing Instagram’s account recovery process, they were able to keep the stolen account even if the victim squarely followed the process.  We’ve seen cases where owners of Instagram profiles with followers between 15,000 and 70,000 were hacked and were never retrieved. The victims ranged from famous actors and singers to owners of startup businesses like photoshoot equipment rentals.