Instagram Investigating Widespread Account Hacks, Users Locked Out

If you've recently institute yourself locked out of Instagram and discovered your login was replaced with a Russian email address, you're not alone.

Mashable first uncovered details on hundreds of Instagram users who took to Twitter and other social platforms over the past month to mutter that their accounts had been hacked. Users suddenly establish themselves locked out of Instagram, and when they regained account access many discovered that data such equally their contact info, bio, handle, and profile image had been inverse. Ane thing the hackers seemingly aren't doing: posting photos or removing old posts.

The Mashable study, which cited data from social analytics platform Talkwalker, found more than 5,000 tweets from 899 accounts mentioning Instagram hacks in the past week alone. In that location has also been a spike in Google searches for "Instagram hacked" and numerous hacking reports by Reddit users.

Common reports amongst users noted that contour pictures had been changed to an animated character from Disney or Pixar films, and that their email accost had been changed to one with a .ru domain. Some users besides had two-factor authentication (2FA) settings turned off.

Instagram responded to the hacking reports in a weblog post stating that the social app is investigating the consequence. The visitor also said it's working on additional 2FA functionality, which hasn't been updated since Instagram rolled out the adequacy back in 2022.

In the meantime, Instagram pointed users to its hacked account page and advised users to change their passwords and revoke access to any suspicious third-party apps.

About Rob Marvin

Rob Marvin

Rob Marvin is PCMag's Acquaintance Features Editor. He writes features, news, and trend stories on all fashion of emerging technologies. Beats include: startups, business and venture capital, blockchain and cryptocurrencies, AI, augmented and virtual reality, IoT and automation, legal cannabis tech, social media, streaming, security, mobile commerce, M&A, and entertainment. Rob was previously Assistant Editor and Associate Editor in PCMag's Concern section. Prior to that, he served as an editor at SD Times. He graduated from Syracuse University'due south S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Yous can also find his business and tech coverage on Entrepreneur and Fox Business organization. Rob is also an unabashed nerd who does occasional amusement writing for …