Hundreds of Instagram users are reporting hacks to their accounts

O Instagram It is one of the largest social networks in the world, but its approach to user security and the protection tools offered so that they maintain control of their accounts is often criticized. And sometimes, this approach also brings serious cases of invasions or attacks. Just see this recent wave brought to light by Mashable.

Over the past few weeks, hundreds of users have started reporting (either on Twitter, on Instagram forums or on their own Mashable) that their accounts had been hacked and there was no simple way to recover them. The priests of the attacks show that it is a coordinated action, although it is known there by whom or for what reason: in all cases, the users found themselves disconnected when opening the application and, when trying to reconnect, were informed of that username didn't exist.

Instagram account message hacked in recent attack

Analyzing the circumstances, the users then realized that their old accounts had had their names and profile pictures modified, and the phones and email addresses associated with the account had been modified ie there is no way to prove their identity, as these are only Instagram's two means of communication with the user to provide account recovery tools.

The ultimate evidence that this is a coordinated attack is in the fact that all affected users saw that the new email addresses associated with their accounts were, without exception, belonging to the .ru domain in Russia.

Contacted, Instagram said it did not register a rise in reports of hacking accounts belonging to the network. Not what shows a quick search on Twitter, however: since the beginning of August, there were almost 800 publications from users around the world reporting similar cases in the same period in July, there were only 40 such cases. Several users also went to report the situation and ask for help on Reddit, which indicates that, yes, something strange is happening.

No one knows, in the same way, what the alleged attackers are carrying out the attacks on: unlike other cases of this type, the crackers are not posting new content on the hacked accounts or deleting old media.

If you have been the victim of a similar attack at that point, the only possible solution is to contact the Instagram team directly and try to prove that the account certainly belongs to you, a tedious process and that could be avoided if the network offered tools more robust recovery or protection.

On the other hand, if your account is intact but you are afraid of being the next victim, it is a good idea to enable two-factor authentication on the network, if you have not already done so. It is not an infallible tactic as informed by the Mashable, at least one user had his profile hacked even with the active feature because between the moment Instagram sent him an email warning of the event and the time the victim went into action, the crackers had already disabled the tool and taken over of everything. Still, let's make the invaders' lives as difficult as possible, no.

Poll of Direct

Still on Instagram, but with a little more positive news, the network recently gained two new features that can make users happy. The first of these is the possibility of making polls on Direct for a specific group of friends previously, it was only possible to apply the tool in Stories, available to all your followers.

As of today, you can send a poll privately to Direct. Update your app to choose who you want to ask, whether it's everyone in a huge group or just your best friend. Update your app now to test!

With that, it will be possible to know the opinion of the people who really matter about that haircut, that look for the party or, who knows, about that little contact. 😛

Integration with Spotify

The second recent novelty in the work of exactly Instagram and yes of Spotify. The platform streaming announced, through its marketing director Jacob Schulman, that it now allows podcasts to be shared directly on Stories of Insta.

Here's something you need to know: we just made it possible for you to share Spotify podcasts directly on Stories from Instagram with deep links and it all.

Spotify, as is well known, has allowed something like music for some time now (which has made, at least in my experience, Stories it is a slightly boring sequence of people publishing what they are hearing all the time but who am I to judge, n). With the addition of podcasts to the cake, users will also be able to share interesting content on the network, which can be quite cool.


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