My account was hacked by a Russian and Instagram sent two emails to me, notifying me that the email and phone number on the account has been changed to my hotmail address - as it was in the middle of a busy working day, I had failed to see those emails as I was so busy with some urgent matters in the office. The Russian hacker didn't change the password though, so I was still happily logged into Instagram and looking at content then. This was a big mistake on my part as I had 24 hours to open those emails, realize that I had been hack and undo the change of the email address and phone number to my account. The clock had started clicking and I was blissfully unaware of what was happening.
Saturday, 14:13
24 hours has lapsed since the initial hack and those links that came in the email have expired due to some dumb security reason they didn't quite think through. I was still busy on Saturday - I was working, having an argument with an old friend who accused me of being an insensitive, autistic moron (guilty as charged) and most of all, I was working all day on Saturday apart from going for a nice swim in the late afternoon. I was still blissfully unaware that I had been hacked.
Sunday, approximately 09:00
As I woke up, I found that I couldn't log into Instagram. Major panic ensued as I started googling 'my Instagram account has been hacked' and tried to follow all the links that I could find like a chicken with its head cut off. It was only that morning when I found the emails dating from Friday afternoon, but it was too late - that crucial 24 hour window period had passed and I couldn't do anything with those links to undo the damage, they were expired. I spent most of Sunday in panic mode, wondering if I had lost my Instagram account forever. It is not like I have millions of followers, but it is more the personal nature of my Instagram account that meant a lot to me, it was my way of sharing my interesting experiences with not just my friends but my followers - I had done a lot of traveling earlier this year including a period when I went to 8 countries in 8 weeks, so naturally, I had loads of interesting photos there. Now I did follow the instructions on Instagram's official help page and it was then the waiting game for them to respond, they had asked me to submit a selfie with a handwritten code, my full name along with my Instagram name. Be assured this is standard practice for Instagram.
They were quick to respond but each time, they responded, I was stuck with the same problem. Because of suspicious login activity (no shit Sherlock, I was hacked by Russians), each time I managed to reset my password, I was immediately blocked from the account - I got stuck with a security page where they needed me to enter a 6-digit security code which had been emailed to my Russian hacker's email address to protect me. And I was like, which part of "I got hacked by Russians" did you not understand? This was pretty much reflective of a lot of people's experience after they got hacked and tried to approach Instagram for help - all too often, you get a standard response from a bot which simply cuts & pastes a standard response and you will wonder if your initial compliant was even read by a real human being.
Monday, all day
Nothing much to report on Monday, apart from the fact that it was a repeat of Sunday, I tried reaching out via the usual means and it yielded much the same results. Talk about Groundhog Day. You know what they say, the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I was upset. I was a angry. I even thought of revenge, like hacking my hacker's email - but that made no sense as a hacker would have thousands of dummy email addresses like that. I had met a Russian friend at the gym and even though I do speak Russian, I spoke to him only in English that night because I was so angry with my Russian hacker. There was a sense of 'what have I done to deserve this' - but then I realized I had left an open goal when it came to cyber security because I didn't use the two step verification process on my Instagram, allowing the hackers easy access. I doubt I was even singled out as a target, a computer programme was probably just looking for easy targets. And all this time, I had to try to focus on my work.
After having bombarded Instagram with emails (I merely clicked 'reply' to any email they had sent me), the latest one read: "This problem should be fixed. We're sorry for any inconvenience this caused." This came through in the middle of the night as the person writing it was probably in California, 8 time zones behind me in London. I read the email when I woke up and tried logging on - sure enough, I was able to get in without that security page demanding a 6-digit verification code (only accessible via my hacker's email account) and sure enough, at about 08:45 on Tuesday, I was back into my Instagram account. Holy shit, the disbelief that came with it. Of course, immediately, I went in and changed all my passwords, enabled two-step verification with my mobile phone and did the same for my other social media accounts just in case the hackers could have access to it. And at this point, I am left wondering, for all the people who lost their Instagram accounts to hackers, why didn't they manage to recover their accounts? Did they follow the steps and still didn't get a respond? Why was I lucky enough to get a real human being to actually read my email and realize what crucial step needed to be done to resolve my situation? Guys, I don't know - after all, I am not an IT expert and was just trying my best to figure out what to do. Perhaps I'm just very lucky or Instagram's customer support has improved a lot.
So in summary, this is what you should be aware of when your Instagram account has been hacked:
Instagram will send you an email notifying you of a change of profile details, ie. when your hacker changes the email and phone number associated with the account - but you have only 24 hours to pick up that email and respond to it before the link expires. So always check your email, at least once everyday because you never know when you can miss something like that the way I did. I always check my work email religiously (well, it's called having a job) but if I am not expecting anything important coming through my personal hotmail, I can go for days without reading it. If you see this email within 24 hours, you can intervene and undo the damage very quickly - once that 24 hours has passed, it becomes a lot harder (as in my case) but not impossible. Simply follow the instructions on their app to recover your account and wait; if you encounter further problems, simply respond to the emails they have sent you and hope that a human actually reads it (which did actually happen in my case). It may be a few days but you will hopefully get your account back. Lastly, use every security measure there is out there to protect all your social media accounts to ensure that this never happens.
If you are not one of my regular readers and you've stumbled upon this in search for help and answers, I hope this has helped. There's not much information on the actual Instagram page and if you turn to the bloggers, you actually get different versions of what may happen because the way Instagram is dealing with the issue does change over time. There seemed to be a difference in the forms in the posts that I read dating to 2017 compared to more recent ones in 2018. Regardless, allow me to express some empathy and sympathy for anyone coming here looking for solutions - it's a rotten thing to happen. Good luck and keep calm. Feel free to leave a comment below please. Many thanks for reading.
Update: Wednesday afternoon
Incredibly, Instagram has contacted me twice since to make sure that I have experienced no further problems getting access back to my account after the hacking. I am more than impressed with their response and am very thankful for their help. So humans do actually read the emails that you send to the Instagram helpdesk. Many thanks Instagram!
Glad you got your account back it was no wonder you suddenly didn't post for a few days.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I think it's not just losing one's Instagram account, it's that feeling of "if they hacked this, what else have they managed to hack?" And you start thinking about all your passwords and everything you do online, it is unnerving to say the least.
DeleteTell me about it. My personal data in Singhealth was stolen in the recent data breech. I'm beyond livid. But no one has gotten back to me on how to remove myself from the database.
DeleteOh yeah that was so huge it even made the news here on the BBC.
DeleteHi LIFT
ReplyDeleteI saw this getting shared on my FB wall recently: https://www.unscrambled.sg/2018/07/26/sporean-boy-told-he-was-autistic-moved-to-australia-and-graduated-from-university-at-17/
Granted, I have no way of verifying 100% if this story is true. Although the webpage itself has yet to become viral, the fact that it is shared and sponsored makes me worry that autism is a condition that will always be undermined and underestimated by Singaporeans as a side effect of hidden intellect in a genius kid, and those with more severe autism (such as the son in this account) will never receive the therapy they need to better manage their condition that can affect their whole lives.
Hmmm, so I can tell you that there is a LOT of misconception about autism and as someone who was clearly a lot more autistic when I was younger (but managed to cope with it), there is no correlation between intellect and autism. Some autistic kids are very smart, some are very stupid, the same way in general, some people are very smart and some are very stupid. Trying to draw any correlation between autism and intellect is bullshit.
DeleteI look back on how I struggled through my younger years - I was book smart and became a scholar but holy shit, I was awful when it came to my social skills. I see the same thing happening with my nephew right now and I am trying my best to be patient: I figured out so many things during my NS days in a do-or-die situation when I have no exams to study for and only had to focus on getting along with the people around me. I don't know how much I have to do to prepare my nephew for NS or if he simply needs to do his time and learn the way I did.