Instagram Likes Cost More Than Stolen Credit Card Numbers

Quick, what's worth more: Likes on Instagram or credit card numbers? According to security firm RSA, fake social media affirmation is worth up to five times that of the potential to steal someone's Visa. But is the fact that people are willing to spend a lot on dark social marketing or that credit card numbers aren't supremely valuable really that surprising?

The assertion that Instagram likes are worth five times that of credit card numbers comes via an interesting Reuters story that looks at the confluence of black hat hackers with black hat marketing/SEO, which is a semi-legal cottage industry to help people build their social media presence and site rankings without putting in the organic work.

According to the Reuters report, which has caused a bit of a stir, "1,000 Instagram 'followers' can be bought for $15 and 1,000 Instagram 'likes' go for $30, whereas 1,000 credit card numbers cost as little as $6."

Just a caveat: RSA's numbers seem off. The first Google hit I found for paid Instagram likes was about half the price RSA quoted, or cheaper if you buy in bulk. Also, good credit card data can hit up to $10 a card, or at least it did a few years ago when it was a big story. I don't doubt that the value has gone done in recent years, but data that's 1,000 times cheaper is probably full of useless crap.

Still, I don't doubt that RSA's numbers are correct somewhere on the spectrum—the high end for likes, and low end for card data, perhaps—so let's run with the concept that bulk Instagram likes are more valuable than bulk credit card numbers. (A legit stolen credit card number that's easily used is obviously worth a lot more.) If we're willing to believe in basic precepts of economics—and we are—that means either Instagram likes are in higher demand or lower supply than credit card numbers.

Presumably, it's a mix of both: Credit card numbers have been packaged and sold online for years, and the methods to skim them are myriad. There are plenty floating around, and when you get, say, 160 million numbers in a hack, the goal is to offload them as quickly and cheaply as possible.

They're also hard to use, as the cheapest sets of numbers are surely lacking security info and haven't been confirmed to still be valid. Add to that the fact that using stolen credit cards is very illegal, which means fewer people are willing to try to use them—or even go searching for them deep in the web. So yeah, $6 for a 1,000 credit card numbers seems like a paltry sum, but actually making money off those numbers is something the average Joe can't or won't do.

On the other hand, sites like Black Hat World are nearly mainstream now, and while buying likes or Twitter followers might violate a site's Terms of Service, it's not something illegal enough that someone is going to worry about it. And with everyone and their dog trying their best to build a social media presence for their new business or record or whatever, adding a few thousands followers or likes can do a lot to make it at least look like you've got your shit together.

Simply put, Instagram has 130 million monthly users, and even if a small percentage of those are actually plunking down cash for hype, that's still a far larger market than there is for stolen credit cards. So it shouldn't be surprising that likes are worth more—assuming you can get past the idea that people would pay for Instagram likes in the first place.

Of course, the problem with paid followers—and, to a lesser extent, likes—is that they're generally extremely low quality. While a person with 3000 bots following them might look more legit at first glance than someone with 200 real people—the main reason people buy them anyway—those bots aren't going to be nearly as engaged as a regular user. So what if a bot likes your photo? No one else is going to see it.

Curiously, the Reuters report hints at a workaround: Hackers have repurposed the Zeus trojan to hijack computers for the sake of posting from users' social accounts. So now you can buy legit Instagram likes, even if they're from infected users. And to an apparently large group of people, that's worth a fair chunk of change.

@derektmead