Skip to main content

Fruit invasion: Instagram hit by spammers selling ‘miracle’ diet

fruitA number of Instagram users checking out photos on the service over the weekend may have started to wonder why everyone was suddenly going bananas taking pictures of fruit, with some streams filling up with the vitamin-laden specimens to an unusual degree.

The reason for Instagram’s sudden influx of fruit-based images (fruit-based videos do not appear to have been part of the incident) was actually the result of an apparently widespread spam attack by an outfit attempting to bring attention to its ‘miracle’ diet comprising – that’s right – fruit.

The attack saw a number of accounts compromised, GigaOM reported, with streams filling with images of fruit, and URLs in user bios changed to link to a fake BBC news webpage with the headline, “Tropical Fruit Burns 17 Pounds in 22 Days, Exclusive Offer for Readers.”

Instagram owner Facebook acknowledged the attack and said it was returning affected accounts to their normal state by removing the images posted by the spammer. However, the company has so far declined to give any details on how the incident occurred.

“Earlier today a small portion of our users experienced a spam incident where unwanted photos were posted from their accounts,” Facebook told GigaOM. “Our security and spam team quickly took actions to secure the accounts involved, and the posted photos are being deleted.”

Affected users were also contacted by Instagram and told to reset their passwords.

“We detected some suspicious activity that suggests your Instagram account may have been compromised,” the message said. “Don’t worry, we’ve taken measures to secure your account. As a result, we need you to reset your password.”

It appears things are now back to normal on the media-sharing site, so any filtered fruit-salad pictures you stumble across from hereon in should be genuine.

If you experienced the fruit-based spam attack over the weekend, let us know how it affected you in the comments below.

[Image: Ildi Papp / Shutterstock]

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
X rival Threads could be about to get millions of more users
Instagram Threads app.

Threads -- Meta’s rival to X, formerly Twitter -- has just launched in the European Union (EU), a market with nearly half a billion people.

The app launched in the U.S. to much fanfare in July, with Meta hoping to attract X users disillusioned with the turbulence on the platform since Elon Musk acquired it for $44 billion 14 months ago.

Read more
X (formerly Twitter) returns after global outage
A white X on a black background, which could be Twitter's new logo.

X, formerly known as Twitter, went down for about 90 minutes for users worldwide early on Thursday ET.

Anyone opening the social media app across all platforms was met with a blank timeline. On desktop, users saw a message that simply read, "Welcome to X," while on mobile the app showed suggestions for accounts to follow.

Read more
How to create multiple profiles on a Facebook account
A series of social media app icons on a colorful smartphone screen.

Facebook (and, by extension, Meta) are particular in the way that they allow users to create accounts and interact with their platform. Being the opposite of the typical anonymous service, Facebook sticks to the rule of one account per one person. However, Facebook allows its users to create multiple profiles that are all linked to one main Facebook account.

In much the same way as Japanese philosophy tells us we have three faces — one to show the world, one to show family, and one to show no one but ourselves — these profiles allow us to put a different 'face' out to different aspects or hobbies. One profile can keep tabs on your friends, while another goes hardcore into networking and selling tech on Facebook Marketplace.

Read more