Someone tried to get access to accounts of IMI’s representative in Volyn region
For the second day in a row, some unknown people are trying to gain access to the accounts of journalist and representative of the Institute of Mass Information in Volyn region Maia Golub on Facebook and Instagram.
Maya received the relevant notifications from social networks on 14 and 15 May.
Messages from Facebook were received by the journalist on the morning of May 15th.
“The first notification from Facebook arrived after 11 o'clock saying that someone wanted to log in to my account from someone else's device and so it was temporarily blocked. After such a message, I was "thrown out" from the account, and then it was temporarily blocked for a few minutes. Later, I received another notification saying that someone was trying to log in to my Facebook, ”the journalist said.
However, I was unable to log in. “I have two-factors authentication on Facebook, as well as a strong password. I checked my login sessions and Ш saw that no one else was able to log in to my account. There were only attempts to break it. Facebook remembers all devices from which I am used to log in to my account, ”said Maya Golub.
At the same time, someone managed to access her Instagram profile, so the journalist immediately changed her password.
“Yesterday, May 14, I received a message from Instagram to my e-mail that I was logged in from a device I did not use. At that time, I did not log in to my Instagram. I don't know who could do that. I immediately changed my password, ”the IMI representative said.
Over the past two weeks IMI published Maya Golub’s news items, which caused a wide discussion inside Volyn journalistic community: "Lutsk journalist said that the water utility company failed to reply to her request for information submitted in November" and "Volyn Regional State Administration canceled meeting, as journalists arrived” .
Commenting on the incident, Anton Kushnir, expert with Digital Security Laboratory, explained for IMI, that since Facebook sent the notification, someone had definitely tried to log in to the account.
“How exactly, Facebook does not explain. It could be that the password is being reused somewhere else or used previously. Or someone tried to enter an old password. They can be found in old password databases. This is a hacking attempt, but because two-factor authentication is configured, it means that in addition to the password, you must specify a second factor. This is an SMS, a code generator code. This is a very reliable way to protect your account, and in this case it worked, ” the expert said.
Anton Kushnir also notes that if this was someone who is very motivated and dispose of resources, that person can intercept SMS messages and, by doing it, gain access to the profile. So, it is better to use a code generator, he added.
It will be recalled that last February, Maya Golub and at least seven other journalists received phishing messages on Facebook.
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