Top Twitch streamer and Fortnite player Tyler ‘Ninja‘ Blevins was the victim of a malicious Instagram hack, after his account with 14.1 million followers began promoting scam iPhone and V-Buck giveaways.
The streamer, who is partnered with Samsung, had an image posted to his account on July 25, claiming to be giving away “1000s of iPhone Xs’, V-Bucks and More!”, and requiring hopeful winners to click a link in his bio.
The giveaway was certainly not genuine, not least because of Ninja’s relationship with Samsung and their Galaxy line of mobile devices.
Many popular streamers have had their social media accounts hacked in the past, although Ninja has, until now, been safe.
The first spam image was later deleted, but within 30 minutes had been reposted again, perhaps indicating that both the hacker and Ninja himself are accessing the account.
Several Instagram ‘stories’ have also been posted to the page, claiming to giveaway V-Bucks, MacBooks, Apple Watches and Amazon giftcards.
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Update, 9:29 AM EST, July 25: Ninja’s manager and wife, Jessica Blevins, has confirmed that the Instagram account has now been recovered.
Ninja Instagram recovered.
— Jessica Blevins (@JessicaBlevins) July 25, 2019
The spam link itself, shared on the Instagram posts, led to a TinyURL page which was later been terminated for spam, fraud or malware.
Hopefully Ninja now has safeguards in place to prevent a future attacks, and thankfully, on this occasion, it was resolved quickly.
Last updated: 9:32 AM, July 25.
