Account Scare

Today I had a bit of a scare, which if nothing else fits the October narrative.

It started when a few of my friends sent me messages letting me know that on Instagram someone had sent them friend requests from an account that looked like mine. It hadn't been up long, but going to check out this other account wasn't a pleasant feeling. They'd taken pictures of my last five or posts on there and moved my account pic slightly, just to make it slightly different. 

After reporting the account as fake, I assumed that I would have to wait days or weeks before it would be dealt with. In this case, I was lucky and they got back to me within the hour. I'm assuming that having my friends who had alerted me also marking it as a fake account had some impact on that. Fortunately, they removed the account without any fuss. 

I'm assuming that the idea was more data collection than actually trying to steal my account. By friending a few of my followers again, they could gain access to more names, more accounts, as well as anyone else that just happened by. Which I suppose is better than them taking my account wholesale and trolling it away.

That actually has kinda happened to me. Six or seven years ago, when I was on Twitter a lot more than I am now, my account got hacked and actually stolen. I couldn't get into it and they'd changed all the accounts for resetting it. Contacting Twitter never garnered me a response and I had to simply count it as a loss. 

So today, this is a reminder. If you see your friends or your fav authors suddenly making a second account or posting oddly, send them a message and let them know, preferably somewhere other than on that account. I am certain that this would have been much worse for me if I hadn't acted quickly, which I wouldn't have if I hadn't been alerted.

The best way to keep each other safe is to watch each other's backs.