In January, it was reported that hackers were taking control of Instagram influencers’ accounts and other accounts with valuable handle names. Some owners of the hacked accounts even contacted white hat hackers to regain control of their accounts.
Seeing the emerging trend of holding Instagram users on ransom for their accounts, the Facebook-owned social media platform is testing new account recovery tools. These tools are intended to help in recovering hacked accounts.
As reported by Engadget, Instagram’s new recovery tools will include a method that will send users a six digit code to their linked email address or phone number.
To tackle these issues, Instagram will deploy additional measures to ensure that the secret codes sent to your mailbox or phone number cannot be used by hackers to access the account from a different device.
The new tool will allow both Android and iOS users to initiate the account recovery process from within the app itself. They won’t need to deal with any emails.
This method will be helpful in cases where hackers usually change the username of the account soon after hacking it. Instagram is bringing in new changes where it will lock down any modifications to the username after account changes (either done by the user or account got hacked).
When it comes to Instagram, hackers usually target accounts that have valuable usernames and once the account is hacked, they change the username. These usernames are then sold on different portals to the highest bidder.
Thus, other users won’t be able to claim the compromised user name. It remains to be seen how effective these new features will turn out to be. It is a never-ending race between hackers and companies. With companies introducing stricter rules, hackers will also invent new methods to get past them.
Also Read: Are SSO Buttons Like “Sign-in With Apple” Better Than Passwords?
