– This was the worst possible timing. At the end of August, artists such as Kygo, Gabrielle and Sigrid will play at the festival Utopia in Stavanger. Then it doesn’t suit festival director Espen Knoph that Utopia’s Instagram account is hacked in mid-July. The festival director explains that they are in a critical time, with a month and a half left until the start of the festival. Every day that goes by without access to the Instagram account causes them to lose valuable marketing. The hackers have given the account a new name. Photo: Philip Kollstrøm / news Received e-mail from the USA Knoph says that when he woke up on Monday morning, he was only going to log into his Instagram account and check the post that was to be published that day. He didn’t get that far. The screen says that the password has been changed. So is the email address. – Shortly afterwards we received some e-mails, with information that a login from Texas in the USA had taken place. Then we get an email where they write that they have control over our Instagram account. Espen Knoph is the festival director of Utopia, and discovered that they had been hacked. Photo: Mathias Oppedal / news Don’t trust the blackmailers If Knoph and the rest of the Utopia organizers wanted their account back, they had to contact the hackers immediately. Otherwise, the account would be sold on to someone else. The hackers have not published anything, but have changed the name of the account. – This seems like pure blackmail. They are looking for an amount of money to give us the account back, says Knoph. – I don’t trust them. I reckon that if we had given them the amount of money, we wouldn’t have got the account back anyway, says the festival director. On Monday, Knoph tried for four hours to get an explanation from Instagram. But, after several video meetings and phone calls, the festival director ended up being told to send a regular inquiry by e-mail to Instagram. – It’s not just about calling a phone number and getting customer service. It’s a big system. The status now is actually that we have sent a request to Instagram to override the account, and give it back to us. We have not yet received any response. He has not yet contacted the police, and most of all wants Instagram to give them back the account. The Utopia organizer published this on his own Facebook page on Tuesday. Photo: Screenshot from Utopia’s Facebook page It will take a long time to build up the follower base – If this had happened in January, I would have breathed more calmly. Rebuilding a follower base like the one we had, with 11,000 followers, usually takes many years. As an emergency solution, they have now created a new Instagram account. – How many followers have you got on the new account? – It was created a few minutes ago, so it’s not much. It will probably take a long time before we are at the levels we have been at for the last six months, unfortunately. For us, it is absolutely critical. Last year, 12,000 tickets were sold for the Utopia festival in Stavanger. Photo: Tom Edvindsen The festival director takes comfort in the fact that they still have followers on other platforms. They have both a newsletter with 14,000 subscribers, and a Facebook account with 13,000 followers. – Until then, I think we will manage. But of course it is an extremely unsettling moment. This is a period where we should have done everything but try to get answers from Instagram and Facebook. news has sent an e-mail to Meta, who owns Instagram, asking if they have a comment. They have not yet responded to the email. Published 16.07.2024, at 17.49 Updated 16.07.2024, at 17.55
ttn-69
– For us it is critical – news Rogaland – Local news, TV and radio
