How I got my Instagram account back after a hacking
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Title : How I got my Instagram account back after a hacking
link : How I got my Instagram account back after a hacking
You are now reading the article How I got my Instagram account back after a hacking With link address https://newstoday-ok.blogspot.com/2018/07/how-i-got-my-instagram-account-back.html
Title : How I got my Instagram account back after a hacking
link : How I got my Instagram account back after a hacking
news-today.world | Hi guys, something traumatic happened to me over the weekend - my Instagram was hacked and yeah, that really sucked as I didn't quite know how to get it back but somehow I managed. Looking up information on the Instagram website wasn't particularly useful and when you start looking it up on Google, there are mixed messages about some people who managed to get it back and those who totally failed despite threatening to sue Instagram in one case in America. Yeah, talk about mixed messages. So in this short post, I will simply relay what happened between Friday afternoon and Tuesday morning, a period of about 3.5 days when I lost access to my Instagram account after it was hacked by a Russian and hopefully, if you've stumbled upon this post whilst looking for answers, hopefully this will give you some guidance as to what worked for me. I am not an IT expert, just your average guy who happens to use Instagram to share interesting stuff with my friends, okay? So I can tell you what I did, but please don't bombard me with complex IT questions.
Friday, 14:13
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.
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 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.
Sunday, approximately 20:00
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 wonder if your initial compliant was even read by a real human being. I went to bed frustrated and thinking I had lost my account for good.
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 and still do my job.
Tuesday, pre-dawn hours
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? Quite frankly, 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 lucky.
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 to you again.
Friday, 14:13
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.
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 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.
Sunday, approximately 20:00
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 wonder if your initial compliant was even read by a real human being. I went to bed frustrated and thinking I had lost my account for good.
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 and still do my job.
Tuesday, pre-dawn hours
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? Quite frankly, 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 lucky.
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 to you again.
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 and I hope I have helped by writing this piece. Good luck. Feel free to leave a comment below. Many thanks for reading.
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You are now reading the article How I got my Instagram account back after a hacking With link address https://newstoday-ok.blogspot.com/2018/07/how-i-got-my-instagram-account-back.html