During my time with Labcook, a multi-platinum music producer, I have came across many situations that were impromptu. One incident that arose was when I was managing his social media accounts. On my birthday, at 3 in the morning, a hacker successfully attempted to get into Labcook’s Instagram account.
After tracking down the hacker by seeing whose pictures and accounts they liked, I was able to get into communications with the hacker. The hacker was a 15-year-old kid from North Carolina. My first thought was to call the police and have them handle the situation but when I called the local department they said they would be of no help because they needed a warrant. I told them I did not have time to obtain such a warrant and decided to handle this situation myself. I was able to negotiate a deal with the hacker and get him to give back the Instagram account in exchange for a Paypal fee. Note that the hacker was threatening to delete the account and all that the producer has gained in followings.
After the hacker gave back the account, he deleted our SoundCloud and we lost all of our songs on there. Granted we only had about 3 songs at the time, it was still a loss nonetheless. The good thing was that in the end, we were able to get his social media back and retain all the followers without too much damage. The damage that the hacker did do, was direct message famous people like Rich The Kid and tell them some incoherent things. Rich The Kid knew Labcook was hacked and responded to the hacker saying, “No one likes a hacker”.
This all goes to show, that in situations that are impromptu and all the sudden, you can take the best course of action to get you to your determined spot. Thinking critically is a big part of staying on your toes and having new ideas. In this situation, the hacker wanted a monetary value for the account back and the police weren’t able to help because this is a grey area in the law. I was able to negotiate and get access back to our social media accounts.
Marc Ayala
