Tyler "Ninja" Blevins is no doubt one of the most popular streamers in gaming today. Ninja is known for his record-breaking streams of Epic Games' Fortnite and arguably being the face of Twitch streaming, which is why it is not surprising that the streamer was the recent target of a malicious Instagram hack.
On July 25, an image was posted on Ninja's Instagram page, claiming to give away thousands of iPhone Xs', V-Bucks, and many more. While the V-Bucks giveaway makes sense due to the streamer's affiliation with Fortnite, the promise of free iPhones confirmed that the post was not genuine, given Ninja's partnership with Samsung and its Galaxy line of mobile devices.
RELATED: Ninja Paid $1 Million To Play Apex Legends
The first giveaway post was immediately taken down, but it quickly reappeared within 30 minutes, suggesting that both Ninja and the hacker were accessing the account at the same time. Apart from photos uploaded in Ninja's social media page, several Instagram stories also popped up claiming the same giveaways with the addition of MacBooks, Apple Watches, and Amazon gift cards.
As of 9:29 AM EST, July 25, Jessica Blevins, wife and manager of the streamer confirmed that the account was indeed hacked, but it has now been recovered. The links posted on Ninja's Instagram account led to a TinyURL page, which is confirmed to have spam and malware content but has since been taken down. No info was released as to the identity of the hacker, or whether Ninja's team was able to trace the perpetrator.
This isn't the first time that a popular Twitch streamer became a victim of a malicious hack. A couple of months ago, DrDisRespect was notified during a live stream session of Fortnite, that his Twitter account had been compromised. The hacker even threatened to release videos of the streamer cheating on his wife, which was claimed to be in DrDisRespect's iCloud. The incident was soon resolved, with the streamer saying that "It was a simple sim card hack. Not a big deal...outdated 1998 technique."
Thankfully, Ninja's hacking ordeal was quickly resolved before the situation got out of hand. As of the moment, it is unclear whether any of the streamer's 14.2 million followers on Instagram were affected by the malicious links. Hopefully, the streamer is now looking into increasing the security in his social media accounts to protect himself, and his millions of followers.