This seems really terrible when an unknown person pops out from nowhere and starts purloining your private information. After the confirmation that Instagram has undergone an enormous data violation and more than six million Instagram accounts have been hacked, people are being in a feeling of timidity.
https://twitter.com/GregoryMichael/status/902998436521287680
The hack first came to notice when actress/singer Selena Gomez’s account was illegally approached last week with the post leaking the naked pictures of her ex Justin Bieber.
Initially, Instagram said the hack had only affected very few celebrities but problem goes to worst when six million accounts seem to be affected including well-known celebrities listing;
Acting: Emma Watson, Emilia Clarke, Zac Efron, Leonardo Di Caprio, Channing Tatum
Music: Harry Styles, Ellie Goulding, Victoria Beckham, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Adele, Snoop Dogg, Britney Spears
Sport: Floyd Mayweather, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Paul Pogba and Zinedine Zidane, Neymar, David Beckham, Ronaldinho, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli
Government: President of the United States (POTUS), NASA
Brands: Nike, Chanel, Adidas
Source: RepKnight, Daily Beast
After exposing private details of celebrities online, the hacker has also created a dark database that allows anyone to access the information just by paying $10(price of two cups of coffee) per search. Since after, officials of Instagram have suggested preventing their account from changing their password.
The hacker claimed to be a Russian and go by the name ‘Doxagram’. Their hacked information online forum is also advertised as “it is only $10 (price of 2 cups of coffee) for celebrity contact info”.
The defect was in the password reset option in the Instagram mobile app, by which hackers were able to expose a bug when a user was asked to reset their password. The bug opened up details and seized user’s email addresses and phone numbers. This ploy is used to send a false password reset requests and then retrieve the account through the email address sent for the password reset.
This vulnerable probability was founded by researchers at Kaspersky Labs which they immediately reported to Facebook.
Mike Krieger (CTO) and also co-founded of the Instagram said, “We quickly fixed the bug, and have been working with law enforcement on the matter.
Although we cannot determine which specific accounts may have been impacted, we believe it was a low percentage of Instagram accounts.”
“Out of an abundance of caution, we encourage you to be vigilant about the security of your account and exercise caution if you observe any suspicious activity such as unrecognized incoming calls, texts, or emails.
We’re encouraging you to report any unusual activity through our reporting tools. You can access those tools by tapping the ‘…’ menu from your profile, selecting “Report a Problem” and then ‘Spam or Abuse’.” He added.
According to Kaspersky, if you have updated version of Instagram then you are safe because the bug had only affected the 2016’s version.
Instagram has advised on what you should do if you found that your account is being hacked by offering a ‘help page’ on how best to keep your account safe.
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