Meta: Account theft on Facebook and Instagram on the rise

The number of account thefts on Facebook and Instagram is currently exploding. Politicians are now demanding significantly more commitment from tech company Meta to tackle the problem.

Justice ministers call on Meta to take action

Account theft on Facebook and Instagram is currently on the rise in the USA. And parent company Meta? Apparently just watching and not taking sufficient action against the problem. At least that is the accusation of the ministers of justice of a total of 41 US states. They have now drafted a letter for the tech company demanding that it take action. This can be found in the report by our colleagues at heise online. The reason for the uproar is quite simply the fact that the authorities are having to invest far too much time in cases of account theft. The already busy justice ministries are therefore “not prepared to work as your company’s customer service”, as the letter to Jennifer Newstead, Chief Legal Officer at Meta, states.

Wave of redundancies as the cause?

It can be no coincidence that the veritable explosion of hijacked accounts picked up speed just as Meta launched a major wave of redundancies in November 2022. At least that is the assumption among the judicial authorities. Almost 11,000 employees were made redundant as part of the extensive restructuring. These were primarily in the areas of “security, data protection and integrity”, as can also be seen from the letter to Newstead. Meta is not accused of simply not wanting to take action against account theft. Rather, the customer support is inadequate. Those affected have no place to turn to if their own account is affected. In the absence of an alternative, they naturally turn to the legal authorities.

The problem with the whole thing is that users are not only deprived of their accounts and can no longer use the social networks. In fact, some of those affected have even suffered financial losses as a result of the attack. After all, there are quite a few users in the USA who simply link their credit card details to their account. This is a practical payment method for commercial users who want to place advertisements on the platforms. Once an account has been taken over, it is not uncommon for advertisements to be placed for products or services that are actually prohibited on Meta’s social networks. As a result, the account is usually irrevocably blocked.

Extensive investment required by Meta

Of course, the perpetrators also engage in “classic” fraudulent activities. For example, they write to contacts in the friends list and ask them for money. They usually feign an emergency situation. From the point of view of the justice ministers, Meta now needs to put money back into its hands to urgently rebuild the security sector.