Montreal woman learns a lesson after Instagram was hacked

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Montreal’s Amanda Polito’s Instagram was a positive part of her day for nine years. Now, it’s a source of stress and anxiety. Polito’s Instagram was hacked account was recently hacked. She says the scammer is now masquerading as her, even sending her taunting messages and offers to buy cryptocurrency.

But complaints to the social media platform have earned her no response at all, Polito told CTV News.

“Let’s say they register their email on a real estate website, and they get hacked. Cyber-criminals get access to that data, sell it on the dark web, and start decoding passwords,” Terry Cutler tells CTV. explained. “And if your password is weak, now they can start logging into bank accounts, Hotmail, Gmail, all these accounts that don’t have two-step verification.”

See the full CTV News story here.

Terry Cutler

I’m Terry Cutler, the creator of Internet Safety University, an educational system helping to defend corporations and individuals against growing cyber threats. I’m a federal government-cleared cybersecurity expert (a Certified Ethical Hacker), and the founder of Cyology Labs, a first-line security defence firm headquartered in Montréal, Canada. In 2020, I wrote a bestselling book about the secrets of internet safety from the viewpoint of an ethical hacker. I’m a frequent contributor to National & Global media coverage about cyber-crime, spying, security failures, internet scams, and social network dangers families and individuals face daily.