My other half discovered that some dodgy person/company had managed to send instagram messages to all of her followers from her account. She changed her password immediately, but what could have happened here? Is it the case that a “hacker” had access to her full instagram account, or would they have used some tool that allows posting of messages via some kind of proxy without requiring access to her actual account? There was no record of other logged in devices on the security page of her account.
She’s just been through her junk email folder and found a “We’ve noticed a new login” email from instagram yesterday
The junk-ing security notices is so common.
A few months ago, my dad said “uh, I got some email from my bank, and now my credit card doesn’t work”.
The email was describing some problem with his account which would have been so much easy to fix before they cancelled the card.
Similarly, I lost a domain name because the registrar notifications for renewal ended up in my junk mail.
It’s probably quite a significant issue. Companies can go “well we tried to contact you” and wash their hands.
Doesn’t matter that they also spammed bullshit marketing emails from the same address that issues security/renewal notifications.
Doesn’t matter that spam email has been such an issue it is near-impossible to host your own email server (and expect delivery) for a decade or so now.
IHawkMike@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Most likely it was a password stuffing attack. If they used the same password on multiple sites, there is a good chance one of those other sites was compromised and the attackers took the compromised credentials and tried them on other sites like Instagram. It could have been something more advanced like a stolen cookie, but usually the simplest explanation is most likely.
Always use a different password for each service, enable MFA where possible, and use a password vault like Bitwarden.
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 5 months ago
yup, all mine are generated by bitwarden and look like this
^!i!MS11Ot4mTT
no reason to ever remember that. and with 2fa, good luck.
tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Huh, that’s a weird way to spell *******