Instagram Adds New Tool to Help Users Identify Phishing Scams

• The tool has been introduced following the rise in fake Instagram emails.
• The new feature introduced by Instagram aims to verify emails sent to users.

With the proliferation of phishing scams, users with accounts on different social media sites are finding difficulty in identifying one. To combat this, the popular photo- and video-sharing social network service Instagram has introduced a new tool.

What’s the problem?

The tool has been introduced following the rise in fake Instagram emails. These emails tricked users into sharing their login credentials and eventually personal details. Online users had a hard time figuring out which emails are real and which ones are fake.

Some of these phishing emails even bypassed the weak spam filters and looked very much like an original message. These made it more difficult for users to catch a scammer’s malicious attempt.

What’s new about the feature?

• The new feature introduced by Instagram aims to verify emails sent to users. The purpose of the tool is to help people identify phishing emails that claim to be from Instagram.
• This account security feature - which can be accessed through Settings - allows anyone to check the authenticity of the email.
• If an email claiming to be from Instagram does not appear in the Instagram Settings, then it is a phishing attempt.

Other security requirements

Awareness of possible phishing attempts is not enough. It is also necessary to enable multi-factor authentication to secure accounts on different social networking services. It is also recommended to use strong passwords and to change passwords frequently.