Fraudsters have recently turned to Instagram social media platforms to scam users as the Hong Kong police have reported 27 hacked accounts in the city where relatives and friends have been cheated out of HK$200,000.
According to the police, alerts posted on its CyberDefender Facebook page on Monday stated that there had been reports of fraudulence on Instagram accounts in the city earlier from the beginning of the month.
After the scammers have successfully hacked the victim's accounts, they will therefore pretend as the users and cheat the followers on their list, police said.
Police said, “The biggest loss in one case amounted to HK$30,000, with a combined loss of nearly HK$200,000".
“Pretending to be the account owners, the hackers sent Instagram messages to the users’ relatives and friends to ask for urgent financial help", it was said.
Afterwards, the victims’ relatives and friends would discover they had been duped after transferring money to bank accounts in the possession of the fraudsters.
Authorities described and warned that an online account hijacking can occur due to various reasons, such as forgetting to log out from a public computer or falling victim to malicious software.
“Whenever you use any social media platform and receive messages from relatives and friends requesting money transfers or payments, you should immediately call them to verify their identity and the legitimacy of the request,” police reiterated.
Police advised that in case of a hacked or hijacked Instagram account, the users should try to log in to their accounts as soon as possible and they should change their passwords promptly.
Additionally, police also urged messaging account holders to enable two-factor authentication and safeguard their account details.
香港警方警告近期 Instagram 劫持事件，受害者在一週內被騙走 20 萬港元
詐騙者最近轉向 Instagram 社群媒體平台詐騙用戶，香港警方報告稱，該市有 27 個帳號被駭，親友的粉絲名單上被騙金額達 20 萬港元。
根據週一在 CyberDefender Facebook 頁面上發布的警方警報，該警報稱本月初曾有報告稱該市的 Instagram 帳戶存在欺詐行為。
警方表示，詐騙者成功入侵受害者帳號後，就會冒充用戶，欺騙其名單上的追蹤者。
警方表示，「其中一宗案件最大損失達3萬港元，合計損失近20萬港元」。
據稱，「駭客冒充帳戶所有者，向用戶的親友發送 Instagram 訊息，請求緊急財務協助」。
隨後，受害者的親友將錢轉入詐騙者的銀行帳戶後，才發現自己被騙了。
當局描述並警告稱，由於各種原因，例如忘記從公共電腦註銷或成為惡意軟體的受害者，可能會發生線上帳戶劫持。
警方重申：“每當您使用任何社交媒體平台並收到親友要求轉帳或付款的消息時，您應該立即致電他們以驗證他們的身份和請求的合法性。”
警方建議，如果 Instagram 帳戶遭到駭客攻擊或劫持，用戶應盡快嘗試登入自己的帳戶，並立即更改密碼。
此外，警方還敦促訊息帳戶持有者啟用雙重認證並保護其帳戶詳細資訊。
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