Instagram top 9: Urgent warning sounded over apps that collect best pictures of the year

Original ‘Top Nine’ app warns that copycats may be stealing login information and hacking accounts

(AFP via Getty Images)

Creating an Instagram top nine could be dangerous, according the original app built to do it.

At the end of every year, Instagram users assemble a “top nine” of their most liked photos. A number of apps exist to round up those images and put them into a collage, so they can be quickly posted onto the feed.

But other apps claiming to offer that service are actually stealing Instagram logins and hacking into accounts, according to a warning from the ‘Top Nine’ app.

A number of apps promise to assemble the top nine, and claim they need a user to log in to do so. It will then show a login page very similar to the official Instagram one.

The apps then use that login to break into accounts, developers warned. The makers of ‘Top Nine’ said that they had received messages “users who’d claim their Instagram account had been ‘hacked’, deleted, or modified after using Top Nine, when really they were unknowingly using a fake Top Nine clone”.

The warning was made by Top Nine, which has reached the top of the App Store after being the original app to offer the service, when it launched in 2016. While a number of other apps offer a similar service – and some allow for new and creative ways of showing those top nine – others seemingly exist only to defraud their users.

Most users will not need to login at all to get a top nine, since their account is public. If an app requests login information to generate a top nine from a public profile, then it may be suspect.

Some users may have to login, however, if their profile is private. When doing so, the app should take you to the official Instagram website to login – and not another site, many of which can look remarkably similar to the real one.

The original Top Nine app can be found on the company’s website. Others are available through the App Store, but should only be used with the warnings above.