Pinterest has been invaded by photos of butt, scantily clad women and weight loss ads. While some people may laugh off the incident, numerous account owners are left to deal with the aftermath - account closure.
On March 27, numerous Pinterest accounts were hacked by spammers. The result? Hundreds, if not thousands, of spammy weight loss ads and photos of butts. Pinterest users are now advised not to click on any suspicious pins.
"Our systems were alerted to some incidents of spam yesterday evening. These reports did not come in at a large scale," said a representative from Pinterest. "We began working on cleaning up and placing the accounts in safe mode immediately. The accounts have since been secured. As a precaution, Pinners should use unique and strong passwords, and can get more information in our Help Center."
Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that people use to post a wide variety of content that sparks the user's interests. The site has been steadily growing more popular with user's posting thousands of photos on a daily basis. Today, Pinterest has over 70 million users and the number is growing.
The site allows account owners to upload, display and manage various photos and media on pinboards. A user's posts are called pins and other Pinterest account owners can view a pinboard.
Due to the popularity of the site, it is not surprising that Pinterest has become the target of hackers and spammers. The hacking event has resulted in numerous spammy pins, which users are advised to avoid clicking.
Pinterest says that the hackers may have gained access to user accounts using a variety of methods. The hackers may have used third party apps with unpatched security problems.
Aside from avoiding the suspicious pins, Pinterest account owners are also advised to be careful when clicking on the "Pin This" widgets on other sites. Hackers may have inserted malicious codes in these widgets that can be used to hijack Pinterest accounts.
A scam alert was also published by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) earlier this month. The BBB warns users to be extra careful about browsing through the content. If the content seems out of place, strange or suspicious in any way, the best course of action would be to stay away. The BBB has specifically mentioned avoiding content related to beauty, celebrities, dieting and giveaways from unknown or shady sites. After all, an ounce of prevention is still a whole lot better than a pound of cure.
