Social media accounts are being hacked into and used to post indecent images of children, a police fraud and cybercrime body has warned.

Action Fraud, a national fraud and cybercrime reporting centre run by police, have reported that social media accounts are being hacked and flooded with indecent images of children.

Reports of this nature to Action Fraud have been increasing month on month since January 2022, with over 60 reports having been received so far this year.

Based on the review of these Action Fraud reports, there appears to be no financial motivation behind this hacking, with no report received mentioning a ransom demand.

Offenders haven’t only posted indecent images, but reportedly have uploaded videos of the same nature as well.

The majority of victims were not aware of the hacking until they received an email from the social media platform informing them that their account had been suspended.

Action Fraud has issued advice on what to do if people come across indecent images of children online.

Firstly, report it to the police by calling 101 or visiting the police station and take the the device on which the images appeared.

Do not screenshot, save or share the image. 

Use 2-step verification (2SV) to protect  social media accounts.

Ensure social media accounts use a strong and different password to your other accounts.

Combining 3 random words that each mean something is a recommended way of creating a password that is easy to remember but hard to crack.

Victims of account hacking should not pay any ransoms, whether it is monetary or in the form of a ‘testimony’ video.

Hacking can be reported to Action Fraud by visiting actionfraud.police.uk, or by calling 0300 123 2040.