Instagram is the most wildly popular app used by all mobile platforms for sharing photos. Recently, there have been different ads across the social media, touting an ‘Instagram for PC’ version of the app. However, security experts have cited that this is not official and the application is typically a marketing scam.
This has now been revealed by Symantec. According to the company, the official versions of Instagram are available only for mobile devices and the Instagram team itself hasn’t launched any version meant for PCs.
However, recently many ads on Facebook pages have been touting what appears to be an ‘Instagram for PC’ application. The application is, we are told, only a marketing scam which persuades the user to download few files, then go online to certain shady links and fill out surveys.
Users are first prompted to download a ‘.rar’ file which is accompanied with another download, comprising of dynamic link library files. Once the user launches the program, it asks for his login credentials. However, upon providing these credentials, the application prompts the user to download another shady file which eventually leads the user to fill out a survey.
In all, what appears to be poorly-devised Instagram emulators fail to deliver an ‘Instagram for PC’ experience. According to Satnam Narang of Symantec, “Both of the supposed versions of Instagram for PC do not deliver as promised. This is just another vehicle for the scammers to convince users to fill out surveys, so they earn money through shady affiliate programs.”
Courtesy: PC World
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