Signs of a hacked Instagram account: how to recover your profile

The social network Instagram provides reliable protection of personal data to its users, using modern encryption protocols and security tools. Therefore, there is no need to worry about the confidentiality of your data. However, it is impossible to completely protect your account from the actions of intruders and hackers, especially if you do not personally monitor your security and set a weak password for your profile. In most cases, the culprit of the problem is the owner of the page due to their carelessness and trustfulness. What to do if Instagram is hacked and how to restore it? We will tell you what measures to take to restore your page.

What signs indicate that an Instagram account has been hacked?

Social networks and internet services are the perfect environment for scammers and hackers. Instagram strives to provide reliable protection of personal information using modern tools and data encryption strategies. However, there is a risk of hacking followers’ pages and using their accounts for their own purposes. First and foremost, the security of your profile depends directly on you. If you do not follow the recommendations of developers and are careless about your account, you may eventually become a victim of a hacker attack.

In most cases, the cause of such problems is user inattention. During registration, the service asks you to come up with a strong password, which is the first line of defense for your account. If you do not give it importance and choose a weak combination, it can easily be revealed. Therefore, be vigilant and do not show confidential information to anyone.

“Highly sought after by criminals are popular accounts, pages of show business stars and celebrities, as they can bring significant income.”

If you are attentive to your account, you can easily determine if someone is trying to hack or has already taken over your profile. How to know if your account has been hacked? Let’s look at the main characteristics that will help you identify the theft of personal information:

1. Notifications from Instagram about suspicious login attempts on your name, which you did not make.
2. After logging in to your personal page, you noticed strange and suspicious publications that you never personally posted in public.
3. The social network may send you a notification to your email, so don’t forget to check it when you have the slightest suspicion of a hacker attack.
4. Messages were sent from your account in private chat to other subscribers with unknown content, even though you did not take such actions.
5. When logging into Instagram, an error pops up due to an incorrectly entered password and username, even though the information is entered correctly. First, check carefully if everything is entered correctly. If you are one hundred percent sure that this is a hack, you will have to take active steps to recover. Perform the recovery and password change procedure for your account using email or mobile phone number linked to the profile.
6. In the most extreme cases, the account is completely blocked, and you cannot access your page. If you did not violate the established rules of the service and did not exceed the limits on mailings and subscriptions, there can be no reason for blocking.

“It is important to understand that all of this can be the basis for serious trouble. If you do not investigate, you risk losing your personal data, and the page will be used by hackers to send spam messages or publications.

The first steps when a profile is hacked

If you encounter an unpleasant situation and cannot log in to your social network account, there may be two possible outcomes:

1. You have been blocked due to posting prohibited materials or violating established restrictions. The ban may be temporary or permanent. In the first case, you just need to wait a few hours or days, and in the second case, you will have to communicate with technical support and prove your innocence.
2. The worst option is that your profile has been hacked by attackers who have changed your contact information and are using it for their selfish purposes.

Therefore, the first thing you need to do is to determine the exact reason. If you are one hundred percent sure that you did not violate the service requirements and did not post prohibited materials on your page, then you have become a victim of a hacker attack. What to do next?

First, try to log in to your account. If you cannot, start the profile recovery process using any standard method. Let’s take a closer look at the password reset and replacement process.

Using email:

1. Open the mobile application on your cell phone.
2. In the login menu, find the “Forgot Password?” button.
3. After that, a recovery window will appear. Enter the email address associated with your account.
4. Go to your email inbox, where you should receive a notification from the social network with a link to reset your security code.
5. Follow the link and enter a new sequence of characters, confirm it.

Did it work? Then you got off easy. If the attackers changed the email address in the settings, you will have to act through your mobile phone number. To do this:

1. Launch the utility and on the social network login page, select the password recovery option.
2. Set the mobile number as the parameter. Enter your contact information in the corresponding line.
3. After that, wait for a notification from the service in the form of an SMS message with a link to cancel the code.
4. Select a new combination and enter it in the free field.
5. Save the changes and try to log in again.

There are cases when the problem is quite deep-seated and scammers manage to change your personal information – email address and attach a new mobile phone number. The last attempt is to log in to the system using your Facebook account. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Launch the Instagram program on your device.
2. Find the login button using your Facebook profile.
3. Enter the login and password from the account in the partner network.
4. Access the Instagram page. Open the settings panel and set a new login password and attach your contact number and email address to your profile.

Note that to achieve a positive result with this method, you must have an active account in the partner service Facebook and install the official client on your smartphone.

Another important condition is that the accounts in Instagram and Facebook must be synchronized and linked to each other. Unfortunately, there are situations much worse when attackers seize both pages in social networks at the same time. In this case, you will have to act according to a different scenario.

Is it possible to recover a stolen Instagram account?

If none of the described methods have brought the desired result, it means that hackers have successfully replaced your personal information and linked a new phone number and email address to your profile. The only way out of this situation is to contact technical support with a corresponding statement. Let’s consider the procedure in more detail:

1. Launch the mobile application on your smartphone.
2. In the login menu, select the option to request help with logging in.
3. Enter your phone number and email. If they have been stolen, enter your Instagram username without errors.
4. Select the option – need additional support.
5. A list of common situations and problems will appear on the screen. Indicate that your account has been hacked.
6. Describe the situation in detail, provide your contacts (login, name) and personal information, email address to receive a competent response from specialists.
7. Send a request for review to technical support.

When considering your question, specialists may ask you to provide scanned copies of an identity document and other additional materials that will help speed up the process. Now you just have to wait for a response.

If you do not want to wait for a lengthy review and resolution of the issue, and there is no important information on your page, it is easier and faster to create a new account using the standard algorithm. In the case of blocking due to a violation of established rules, be prepared that developers may not return your profile and permanently block it.

How to secure your page from hacking

To avoid falling for scammers and protect your page from hacker attacks, follow these useful recommendations:

1. When registering your account, try to come up with a reliable password that only you know. You can use automatic code generators. Use a combination of numbers, symbols, lowercase and uppercase letters.
2. Under no circumstances show or disclose your password to anyone, keep it in a safe place, preferably in your memory.
3. Activate two-factor authentication for your profile. To do this, go to your personal page in the mobile app and open the social network settings section. On the next page, click on the security tab. Then select the two-factor identification option and activate it by sliding the switch to the on position. From now on, when logging into your account, the system will send a confirmation code to your phone number, without which authorization will be denied.
4. To increase the level of security, try to change your protective password at least once a month. Be sure to attach your email address and contact number to your account.
5. When logging into your page from other mobile devices or computers, do not save authorization data and do not forget to log out of your profile at the end of your work.

All of this will help you build reliable protection against hacker attacks and prevent unwanted page hacking.

The article explains what to do if scammers have hacked your Instagram profile. In such a situation, you can try to solve the problem yourself by restoring access and resetting your old password. If scammers have changed your email address and phone number, you will have to contact customer support with a request. To avoid this, try to follow basic precautions and enable two-factor user identification.