Instagram has grown to be the biggest platform for high-quality pictures. Many celebrities and photographers choose it as their platform of choice for photos, as they can showcase anything from photographic works of art to outfits of the day. The fact that the site offers a wide variety of tasteful filters to choose from is also a plus, and those filters helped to make the app grow.
An API oversight
On such a popular app with millions of users, overlooked bugs that threaten the security and privacy of the user base is a no-no. But this is exactly what happened when the company announced on Wednesday that there is a bug that "allowed hackers to access contact phone numbers and email addresses for high-profile users."
According to The Verge, the bug was hidden in IG's application programming interface, or more commonly known as its API.
The API is what Instagram uses to communicate with other apps. For example, the feature that allows users to automatically share their IG posts to Facebook uses both platforms' API to communicate.
Apparently, hackers found a bug within the API and exploited it so as to gain access to accounts.
The Selena Gomez hack
While Instagram has declined to announce whose accounts were hacked, the hackers were not really being subtle about their actions. Two days prior to the announcement of the bug, the account of Instagram's most-followed user, Selena Gomez, posted nudes of the singer's ex, Justin Bieber.
Selena Gomez has 125 million followers on Instagram, all of whom may have seen the nude photos. As a result, Gomez's account was temporarily taken down Monday while the company tried to fix the bug.
The account was restored a few hours later.
This was seen as an obvious hack, and the breach was confirmed in a statement by Instagram. "We recently discovered that one or more individuals obtained unlawful access to a number of high-profile Instagram users' contact information," the company said. They added that the hackers had access to phone numbers and email addresses.
Verified account holders have been notified of the bug and the possible hack. The company warned their verified users that their accounts could be subject to a breach, and warned them to be cautious about entertaining emails, messages, and calls from unknown sources.
Instagram stated that they have fixed the bug. They are running thorough investigations about the leak and the Breach Of Privacy.
