Massive Instagram 'Click Farm' Found After Data Breach

Massive Instagram 'Click Farm' Found After Data Breach

Fake accounts on social media platforms are often used to commit fraud, as well as spread misinformation and fake news, which is why the recent discovery of a huge 'click farm' on Instagram is so concerning. For those unfamiliar with click farms, they are operations where low-wage workers, typically in developing countries without strict data regulations, are paid to click links and interact with users online. , either to earn revenue from advertising or to inflate a person's subscribers on a social network. . The vpnMentor research team, led by Noam Rotem and Ran Lucar, stumbled upon this new click farm after discovering a Command and Control (C&C) server containing data for tens of thousands of Instagram profiles, including names of username and passwords, proxy IP addresses, email addresses. logged into accounts, SMS verification codes and phone numbers used in the transaction. Since all of this data was stored on a single server, click farm operations were completely centralized and controlled by a single entity. This allowed anyone who worked on the farm to log into an account from anywhere in the world and start interacting with real Instagram users online.

Instagram Click Farm

Based on their initial investigation, vpnMentor believes that the click farm is operated by a third party that is likely based in Kazakhstan or Armenia. However, the investigative team also contacted Instagram's parent company, Facebook, after learning of the operation. Fake Instagram accounts have been used to post, view others' posts, follow, react to, and interact with other profiles on the platform. To avoid being flagged as spam, the click farm operator matched each fake profile with an IP address in a country that matched his "person." At the same time, thousands of local SIM cards were also needed to receive verification codes when signing up for Instagram. In addition to many real server IP addresses located in Kazakhstan and Armenia, mobile operators were also used to receive verification messages via SMS. We might eventually find out more about the click farm operator and his intentions once Facebook conducts its own investigation into the matter. Via vpnMentor