"Facebook deletes billions of fake accounts each year across its services," Constine said. So Facebook, which owns Instagram, won't delete it as being "fake." "And so it's a crown jewel for hackers to steal." Constine says your Instagram account may be highly valuable on the black market, even if it only has cute animals and foodie photos. "Instagram is the king of social media," TechCrunch editor Josh Constine said. And like many others, Esna-Ashri and Lee wondered: why theirs? Social media sites are teeming with reports like theirs - hackers, many seemingly in Russia, stealing ordinary Instagram accounts. "I asked them if they could help me and they said this is a private facility, a private building and you can't come in," Esna-Ashri said. She got so frustrated she marched down to the Instagram building in Menlo Park and knocked on the door. "I sent email after email, nobody responded," Esna-Ashri said. "It was clear it was a robot just giving automated responses," Lee said. Just a tab on the site to report a problem. There was no phone number, no customer service.
"Like human trafficking or taking the pictures, finding me here."īoth tried to contact Instagram to get their accounts back. "It was a scary feeling because I was imagining a bunch of things they might be doing,'' Esna-Ashri said.
"I worried about what they might be doing, sending messages in my name, using pictures." Her voice trailed off. "Panic, just panic, and I want to do something to fix it," Lee said. RELATED: FBI investigating Facebook hack as company reveals new information And they said Instagram ignored their pleas for help.
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The hacker had changed the email and password associated with their accounts, so they were powerless to get back in to claim them back.
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They could tell by the "RU" country code in the email address. But both found their accounts suddenly hijacked by someone somewhere, and linked to an email based in Russia. Likewise, Lee posted only whimsical photos of food and friends. Esna-Ashri, a fashion student at the Academy of Art University, had posted only ordinary pictures of her designs, her friends, her classes. "I don't know what they wanted with my account,'' she said.īoth seemed like unlikely targets for a hacker. The same thing happened to San Francisco first-grade teacher Jamie Lee. She awoke one day to find she couldn't log into her Instagram. "So, a Russian hacked my Instagram," college student Sofia Esna-Ashri explained how it all began.
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