SIMulated giveaway on Instagram: the prize is your account!

[harlan4096]

A popular blogger’s Instagram account was hijacked using a SIM-swap attack, and deepfakes were generated to scam followers.
 
“I’m giving away $125 000! Join the project via the link in my profile!” — suddenly, a popular Russian blogger launches a massive cash giveaway on Instagram. A familiar face, speaking in upbeat voice and confident tone, appears in Stories. It all looks too good to be true…

That’s because it is. There’s no real project. The blogger didn’t launch anything. Her account was simply hijacked. And the scammers went beyond the usual tricks: not only did they steal access and post a fake giveaway link, but they also stitched together a new video from old footage and dubbed it with a voice generated by neural networks. Read the whole story to learn how Instagram accounts are stolen by swapping SIM cards — and what you can do to protect yourself.

An almost flawless scam campaign

With the rise of AI tools, scammers have suddenly gotten “smarter”. Before, having hacked a blogger, they’d have just posted phishing links and hoped the audience would bite. Now they can run full-fledged PR campaigns from the stolen account. Here’s what the scammers did this time:

• One short video. They wrote a script, voiced it with a deepfake of the blogger’s voice, and edited together visuals from her previously posted Reels.
  
• A text post. They published a photo with a tear-jerking caption about how hard it was to launch the project, trying to mimic the blogger’s usual tone.
  
• Four Stories. They reused old Stories where the blogger mentioned a real project, added a link to a phishing site, and reposted them.
  

All this lends the fake project an air of legitimacy — since bloggers often use content like this across different formats to promote real initiatives. The scammers spared no effort — even throwing in some testimonials from grateful fans; fake ones, of course.

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