Cyber Incident Victim: Los Ángeles de la Mañana
Date:
Oct 2023
Location:
Argentina
Summary
A cyberattack targeted multiple personalities associated with LAM, compromising their Instagram accounts and resulting in abrupt account closures. Yanina Latorre and Nazarena Vélez, both panelists on the program, lost primary accounts critical for audience engagement and income generation through promotions and giveaways. The victims initiated secondary accounts to rebuild follower bases, employing strategies like announcing giveaways to attract users. The incident disrupted professional activities and highlighted a broader pattern of serial targeting, with indications that other celebrities, including Lucila Villar, were similarly affected. The attackers' motives remain unspecified, but the impact centered on reputational and financial harm due to severed digital connections with followers.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 2 motives | 1 technique |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 0 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
The cyber incident targeting personalities associated with LAM commenced with the compromise of Yanina Latorre's Instagram account, which resulted in its abrupt closure and loss of access to her millions of followers. This was followed by an identical attack on Nazarena Vélez's Instagram account within a short timeframe, leaving both individuals without their primary social media platforms. These accounts served as critical professional tools, facilitating income generation through sponsored content, product exchanges ("canjes"), and promotional giveaways ("sorteos"), while also enabling direct audience engagement. The financial and operational impact was immediate, compelling both victims to activate secondary Instagram accounts (@yanilatorreok and @nazavelezok) to rebuild their follower bases. Yanina Latorre's recovery efforts on her backup account yielded approximately 155,000 followers, while Nazarena Vélez accumulated nearly 82,000 followers on her alternate profile.
Nazarena Vélez implemented a promotional strategy involving announced giveaways, including high-demand items like an Essen frying pan, to accelerate follower recovery. During this process, she publicly questioned potential reasons for the account termination but found no identifiable misconduct, acknowledging her outspoken public persona as a LAM panelist while emphasizing her current moderation in online interactions. Ale Pucheta, Vélez's former partner and father of her daughter Barbie Vélez, publicly supported her recovery efforts by promoting her backup account through a family photo post. Concurrently, content creator Fede Bongiorno—now a LAM producer—identified a pattern of serial attacks against public figures, disclosing that Lucila "La Tora" Villar had also been victimized under similar circumstances. The coordinated nature of these account takeovers disrupted multiple professionals' income streams and necessitated public mitigation campaigns to restore digital presence and audience connectivity.