Crave that Instagram verified badge? Don’t fall for this login-stealing scam

There’s nothing quite like the cachet of that elusive “verified” blue check mark from Instagram.

How you get one is somewhat mysterious, as Forbes’s Tom Ward has found out: it’s not always enough to be famous and have a ton of followers, and it’s not always enough to get a digital agency to submit a request for you.

But here’s one sure-fire way not to get that little blue check that will instead lead to your account credentials getting stolen: scammers are promising to get you a “verified” badge, but when Instagram users fall for the “apply now” come-on, their login credentials are being phished away.

The scam was spotted by security researchers with Sucuri. One of the researchers, Luke Leal, said in a post last week that they recently came across a page that was spoofing a real Instagram Verification submission page.

Verily, do not click that verification come-on

The researchers said that after clicking on the Apply Now button, the page threw up a series of phishing forms that were hosted on the phishing domain instagramforbusiness[.]info. Then, the forms asked victims for their Instagram login information: it instructed its intended victims to confirm their email addresses, as well as their passwords.