Unmoderated, BAT’s user base left some interesting comments.
You’d think a car auction site based out of San Francisco (a stone’s throw from Silicon Valley) would have rock solid password management and would be immune to phishing tactics, but such is not the case.
Earlier today, someone managed to hack into the Bring A Trailer’s Instagram account, taking control of their close to 4,000 posts, dozens of Instagram stories, and its 273,000+ followers.
Check out screenshots of what their account looked like this morning.
The hack was brought to my attention thanks to several posts on Twitter around 7:30 A.M.
i can’t breathe pic.twitter.com/zomkKltAKT
— Kevin “Daewood” Williams (@GaytonaUSA) September 24, 2021
Although no one at the moment knows who hacked into this account, the profile’s been changed to several influencer-type accounts with Turkish origins.
Its latest placeholder is someone named Yaren Azer.
With a mostly male demographic, unmoderated, the comments section devolved into who could come up with the most chauvinistic comparison between women and cars.
Here’s a screenshot of the most liked comments.
Some of the more civil comments poked fun at the probability of the account holder having a weak password or accusing Cars and Bids’s Doug Demuro as the mastermind behind this social media heist.
A hacked account is also affecting Bring A Trailer’s follower count. Since I started writing this blog, I’ve been monitoring their live follower count. In the last half hour BAT’s lost over 300 followers and counting.
Since BAT isn’t celebrity-level large, they’ll likely have to go through the drawn-out and lengthy process of confirming who they are with Instagram to regain their account.
By then, they’ll have lost a good chunk of its followers and whoever is in charge of their social media will either be severely reprimanded or let go.
Let this be a warning if you use Instagram, make sure you have a strong password, consider turning on 2FA, and ensure your primary e-maill address is secure too.
Later.com delves into best practices a little better, post linked here.
Good social media security habits not only keeps your social media accounts secure, the same habits carry into your work environment.
I sure as heck don’t want to be whoever manages BAT’s social media right now.
[…] might seem funny and harmless, like the time Bring A Trailer’s Instagram account was taken over by some Turkish influencer, but this time, thousands of dollars from an innocent person’s bank account is at […]