Is there any way to get my hacked Instagram back?
April 19, 2016 3:56 PM Subscribe
My Instagram was hacked into earlier today, and both the password and associated email were changed.
An attempt was also made on my twitter account (the two share an email logon and password), but was unsuccessful. I have submitted the form on Instagram's website, and am waiting for a response from them. Is there anything else I can or should do in the mean time? I'm already desperately trying to think of other accounts I may have used the same credentials for. The Instagram account is important to me, as it is associated with my pretty serious nail art project and I had some 11K followers.
An attempt was also made on my twitter account (the two share an email logon and password), but was unsuccessful. I have submitted the form on Instagram's website, and am waiting for a response from them. Is there anything else I can or should do in the mean time? I'm already desperately trying to think of other accounts I may have used the same credentials for. The Instagram account is important to me, as it is associated with my pretty serious nail art project and I had some 11K followers.
This happened to Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen awhile back. It sounds like she had some friends in high places to lobby on her behalf to restore her access. Even given that, she lost everything previously posted to the Instagram accounts. (Which appalls me - I'd thought surely there were server-side backups in case crap like this happened; even Snapchat saves your "vanishing" pics for 30 days!)
Primethyme's advice re acquiring and using a strong password generator/manager and turning on 2FA where possible is sound. Were you using any of the Instagram features to crosspost your images to other websites like Twitter or Flickr? That's probably your best shot at rescuing your pictures.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 6:19 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Primethyme's advice re acquiring and using a strong password generator/manager and turning on 2FA where possible is sound. Were you using any of the Instagram features to crosspost your images to other websites like Twitter or Flickr? That's probably your best shot at rescuing your pictures.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 6:19 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Well, luckily Instagram came through and returned the account to me. I had to email them a picture of myself holding a paper with a special code and verify that I owned the email address used to create the account.
The advice on security is solid-- and I should have been doing that all along but was just too lazy. This has shocked me into taking some necessary steps.
posted by bookish at 10:28 AM on April 21, 2016
The advice on security is solid-- and I should have been doing that all along but was just too lazy. This has shocked me into taking some necessary steps.
posted by bookish at 10:28 AM on April 21, 2016
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While you're waiting, change every account you have to use a unique password (never re-use passwords between accounts; use something like 1Password or LastPass to generate and save unique ones), and turn on 2-step (or 2-factor) verification on every account that supports it.
posted by primethyme at 4:05 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]