What to do when your instagram account is hacked?

What can you do when your instagram account is hacked? How can you make your account safer? Find it out right here.

My own experience being hacked

A fishy collab

It wasn’t so long ago that I was studying for my last exam when I suddenly got a mail for an instagram collaboration. I was excited because I love to get to know new brands and creating beautiful content for them. I read the mail and below I found a link to their instagram account.

So of course I clicked it. The link brought me to the instagram homepage where I had to log in to be able to see the account of the company. That was kind of strange since my instragram logs in automatically on my laptop. But naïve and exciting as I was, without thinking this trough, I entered my password. And a beautiful profile with stunning dresses appeared.

By the way I think this profile has nothing to do with the hackers but they just used it as bait.

I was already daydreaming about a wonderful collaboration and before I knew it I got several mails from instagram. Your password was changed, your username was changed, your email address was changed, your telephone number was changed, …
I was literally freaking out and before I could act I already lost my profile.

Help instagram, my account am hacked!

Meanwhile I received a mail from a Russian sender, with the message that my account was hacked and I needed to contact them. At that moment I didn’t pay that much attention to it.

I started browsing on the Internet to find information on what my options were, but everything was so vague? You also had to login into your account also what I clearly couldn’t do anymore. Afraid, I asked around amongst friends and someone advised me to try to log in as much as possible.

So following his advice I tried to log in with my usersname and the new usersname. Normally you get a verification code on your phone that you have to enter when logging in, but that didn’t work at all. I got the code, but I couldn’t use it to log in.
Because I tried it several times in a row, some instagram popup came up: Are you hacked?

It was a sort form you could fill in with all your personal information. I completed it right away and a couple of minutes later I received a mail from instagram. They told me I needed to confirm my identity by taking a picture of me holding a paper written with a code that they provided and my full name and username. I executed all the steps correctly, but I didn’t receive any answer.

extortion for bitcoins

Suddenly I noticed that mail from the weird Russian sender that I got earlier. I replied asking what the meaning of all this was.
They told me that my account was ordered to be hacked, but that the client didn’t pay so they wanted to give my account back for a price.

I tried to negotiate with them, but they started to threaten me. They were going to delete all my pictures and sell my account if didn’t pay them. I can’t describe what I felt, but I felt bad, real bad. I even got sick to my stomach.

A lot of things went trough my mind. I thought I would lose everything I worked so hard for the past years. And I still had to focus on studying for my exam. I was really depressed.

The next day I woke up with several messages from the hackers. Counting down the hours and threatening me that they already started to delete my pictures. I replied and decided to stall them a bit, since I still didn’t get a reply from instagram.

Studying that day was hard, because every few hours the hackers mailed me to pay up or they would sell my account. O yes, they didn’t even want money, only bitcoins. A few times I thought about paying them but via a safe link. When they started to demand bitcoins or transactions via moneygram I didn’t agree with that because I was afraid they could hack my bank account. Meanwhile I tried to focus as much as possible on my upcoming exam and ignoring those threats.

By the end of the day I already accepted the fact that I would lose my account and that I had to start over form scratch.

When Instagram saved my account and my exam

The next day I woke up without messages so I thought: it’s done. They know I won’t pay and they have deleted my pictures and sold my account.

I left for my exam. And just before I entered the auditorium I got an email from Instagram that my account was fixed and I could reinstall my password. I never felt happier entering an exam even though I hadn’t study that much.

When I got home I reinstalled everything and I added the two-factor authentication for extra security.

So when your account is hacked try to contact instagram as soon as possible!

What can you do to secure your account better:

• Pick a strong password with a combination of capital letters, letters, numbers and punctuation marks. Go for something nobody knows about you.
• Pick a different password for every account instragram, facebook, twitter, email,…
• Put two-factor authentication your on!
• Don’t forget to log off when you are using someone else equipment.
• Check apps before you authorize access to your account. You can do this easily by looking up some review on the Internet.
• And last but not least: DON’T OPEN suspicious links

I hope this information was useful. Do you have any question on this topic or additions. Let me know in a comment below.

Yours truly,

Sarah