If you’ve been on Instagram recently, you’ve probably seen someone you know have their account hacked. Lately, hackers have been stealing people’s accounts and changing phone numbers and emails so that people can’t recover them, uploading fraudulent posts and stories about Bitcoin schemes and making money fast.
Sadly, a local grocery store was the victim this time, and things got even more strange. Summerhill Market, a small chain of boutique grocery stores with a reputation for stocking hard-to-find, expensive treats and ready made meals like pot pies.
On Monday morning just before 9am, Summerhill Market received an email from Instagram, notifying them that the phone number had been removed from their account. More email notifications followed, saying there had been a login onto the account from Chicago, and then the password was changed. Almost immediately, the Summerhill Market team was locked out of their Instagram account.
Roughly 15 minutes later, the hacker reached out to one of the market’s representatives on WhatsApp. “Hello dear,” the messages began. “We have your Instagram account and we will give it back for $600.” The representative didn’t see the message until Wednesday, but weighed out whether or not to take action and pay the ransom.
After some consideration, the team decided that the $600 US Dollars was worth the account, even though they lost 17,000 followers. The team sent the money to the hackers in Bitcoin. But, the hackers weren’t done, and asked for $400 USD more. Summerhill Market refused, not prepared to take a second monetary risk, and the $1000 total may not have been the total amount the hackers were prepared to ask for. The team decided to cut their losses. They’ve now set up a backup account, @summerhillmrkt, and will be reporting the incident to police while working to restore their original Instagram.
