Hundreds of Instagram accounts have been hacked in the last few days

[midian182]

What just happened? Virtually all online accounts, especially social media profiles, are at risk from hackers. But with hundreds of Instagram users reportedly experiencing similar intrusions over the last few days, these incidents look like a pattern rather than random attacks.

Victims are finding themselves logged out of their Instagram accounts, only to discover that their usernames don’t exist anymore when they attempt to log back in. In addition to their handles changing, affected users’ profile image, email address, phone number, and bios have been altered, too.

Strangely, the profile pictures are often changed to either stills from movies or Disney/Pixar animated characters, and the new email accounts originate from the Russian .ru domain. What’s also unusual is that the hackers aren’t deleting or adding any new posts, which often happens to compromised social media accounts.

While the .ru email addresses do suggest the attacks have a Russian origin, a number of countries can register for an account with the service.

One user said that they were using the optional two-factor authentication at the time of the hack, but it didn’t prevent the attacker from gaining access.

According to Mashable, more than 5000 tweets from 899 Twitter accounts have mentioned Instagram hacks in the last seven days, many of them asking Instagram’s Twitter account for help. But the Facebook-owned firm hasn’t been particularly helpful, and many victims are finding the automated reporting process frustrating. "The maze that Instagram sends you on to get your account back is laughable and leads to broken/dead links and emails from robots which lead nowhere," said Abagail Nowak, one of the affected users.

"Frankly, Instagram has been useless in helping me. I have sent at least a dozen emails to Instagram support and the response is always the canned email - we'll get back to you. No call or email ever comes back. I sent emails to all the top executives at Instagram... no response," Cynthia Corzo, who was also hacked, told me. "I sent private messages via Facebook to those top executives... no response."

"I'm truly disappointed with Instagram's lack of assistance. I uninstalled the app and am not sure I'll ever go back."

Instagram says it is now investigating the claims, despite initially denying any increase in hacking reports. If you’ve got an account, enabling two-factor authentication is advised—even though it failed to protect at least one person.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/75974-hundreds-instagram-accounts-have-hacked-last-few-days.html

 

[Bubbajim]

First they interfere with all manner of major democratic elections, and then they try and mess with our pictures of food and cats?! Well that's just the last non-recyclable straw.

 

[senketsu]

What today is termed fake news and election interference are nothing new. I am reading James Glieck's book 'The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood' and in it there is a quote from an American journalist,
"For this purpose the newspapers will become emphatically useless. Anticipated at every point by the lightning wings of the Telegraph, they can only deal in local "items" or abstract speculations. Their power to create sensations, even in election campaigns, will be greatly lessened - as the infallible Telegraph will contradict these falsehoods as fast as they can publish them." We are talking circa 1850 here.

 

[Uncle Al]

Was that a serious question? it's not like there haven't been plenty of warnings and anyone that actually believes the C R A P that comes over social networks deserves what they get, or believe in .....

 

[frostyshield]

I was born in 1991, Could there be a russian link?

I laugh at all this, like seriously any country or individual could've done this, even america xD all to make russia look bad like seriously pretty sure if it was russia they could've done something worse than "locking my instagram and changing stuff (crys like a baby: I want my instagram I got food pics to upload)"

 

[Kibaruk]

The lack of help when things like this happens is laughable at the very least, I found the same issue when my Spotify account got hacked, they ask for stuff that was easily accesible by anyone who had access to it like... last 4 digits of the credit card... shown... name of some of the playlists in the account... if someone had access they could see the playlists right?... from the moment the account was reported as hacked and trying to get someone to help, it took them whole 2 days until they blocked it.

Laughable...

I was born in 1991, Could there be a russian link?

I laugh at all this, like seriously any country or individual could've done this, even america xD all to make russia look bad like seriously pretty sure if it was russia they could've done something worse than "locking my instagram and changing stuff (crys like a baby: I want my instagram I got food pics to upload)"

Your "xD" emphasizes the first line in your post and states more than you can think. You are overstating something that was already said very clearly in the topic.

While the .ru email addresses do suggest the attacks have a Russian origin, a number of countries can register for an account with the service.