The problem has affected several high-profile Instagram users, too. A criminal reportedly compromised the Instagram account for Bored Ape Yacht Club, a leading collective for NFTs (non-fungible tokens, digital files that can be bought and sold as investments) in late April. Reports say the hacker was able to steal $3 million of NFTs by tricking the account’s followers with a phishing attack. Then, the account for Gabriel Clark, a 12-year-old who amassed 256,000 followers after going viral for his woodworking skills and raising money for Ukrainian children affected by the war, was allegedly taken over by “Russian hackers,” according to the boy’s father.
Once your account is lost there’s often little you can do about it.
“Instagram has been notoriously uncooperative when people lose access to their accounts, and insensitive that many people have business revenue that depends on them,” says Dan Guido, the CEO of security firm Trail of Bits.
Ayisi waded through a confusing set of recovery tools that failed half a dozen times over the course of a week. Shortly after we contacted Instagram to ask about Ayisi’s case, one of the tools started working—though a spokesperson says the timing was just a coincidence.
“We have sophisticated measures in place to stop bad actors in their tracks before they gain access to accounts, as well as measures to help people recover their accounts,” the spokesperson says. “We know we can do more here, and we’re working hard in both of these areas to stop bad actors before they cause harm, and to keep our community safe.” Instagram is currently testing a new feature that lets a user’s friends help verify their identity when an account gets hacked.
While Ayisi eventually recovered her account, others haven’t been so lucky: We spoke to users who say their Instagram accounts were lost forever.
You may have a very brief period of time after an Instagram hijacking to save the account. Below you’ll find all the steps you can follow, in the order you should try them. We also have advice on what to avoid doing to try to recover your account and how to protect yourself to begin with.
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