Warning: New Phishing Campaign Targets Instagram Users
KnowBe4, Tuesday, August 5th, 2025
A phishing campaign is targeting Instagram users with phony notifications about failed login attempts, according to researchers at Malwarebytes. Notably, the emails contain "mailto" links rather than traditional URLs, which help the phishing messages avoid being flagged by security filters.
"Instead of linking to a phishing website, which is most common with emails like this, both the 'Report this user' and 'Remove your email address' links are mailto links," the researchers write.
"Clicking on a mailto link opens your default email program with a pre-addressed message with the subject line 'Report this user to secure your account' or 'Remove your email address from this account' for the second link. The email addresses in these links all had unsuspicious looking domains, made to look similar to legitimate ones."