This post is mostly written to educate our online surfers, us who likes to do our shopping online, follow people and brands on the social media and us who runs a high end brand or is a an influencer. We all need to be aware and take responsibility everytime we go online. Tha brands owner needs to do what they can do to guide their consumers the best in knowing which brands are real and those who are not, and the consumers needs to pay good attention, be aware and take responsibility.
Lots of phishing and fake accounts takes place everyday. This week we experienced a case with instagram where a brand was attacked. Someone had created a very similar account and try to get their followers to hand out creditcard information.
The case was quite simple. The real brand had a winter holiday competition where you could win a nice vintage bag. A lot of followers participated. Suddenly a lot of them got a Instagram message saying that they were the winner. To receive the bag they just needed to follow a few steps followed by handing out the creditcard information.
Some of the followers unfortunately did this and as we speak, we do not know, if money was transferred from their account to the criminals.
It happens all the time and it is very had to prevent. The banks, the governments, the brands owner all try to do their best to prevent this and guide us, and they need to continue to do so. It is a part of beeing online. The followers and consumers also need to take their part.
Be aware and responsible so we then together can have a succes in making the internet more secure.