Hacked Instagram

Streamside

My email account was hacked recently and shortly afterwards my Instagram was taken over by a Russian email address.I didn't receive an email telling me the account email address was changing and I think that was because there were a few days when I didn't receive emails from the hacked email account.I've asked my email provider if they can provide the missing emails and hope that I can revert the account.
Meanwhile ,I've spent the past fortnight trying to retrieve my account.At Instagram's prompting I've sent prisoner like pictures of myself holding codes etc but nothing has worked.I get ridiculous automated responses which just make me go round in circles.My Instagram is a business account with my business name and photographs still intact, it's linked to my Facebook business page and I can't link any other Instagram account to it.Any tips?

Takmon

Streamside wrote: »

My email account was hacked recently and shortly afterwards my Instagram was taken over by a Russian email address.I didn't receive an email telling me the account email address was changing and I think that was because there were a few days when I didn't receive emails from the hacked email account.I've asked my email provider if they can provide the missing emails and hope that I can revert the account.
Meanwhile ,I've spent the past fortnight trying to retrieve my account.At Instagram's prompting I've sent prisoner like pictures of myself holding codes etc but nothing has worked.I get ridiculous automated responses which just make me go round in circles.My Instagram is a business account with my business name and photographs still intact, it's linked to my Facebook business page and I can't link any other Instagram account to it.Any tips?

Well firstly it's important for you to know that your email account wasn't "hacked" if this was the case it would be big news with thousands of people effected. What actually happened is that you inadvertently gave out your password to your email account by either some kind of phishing attempt or insecurities on the device used to access the account.

So what you need to do is change all your passwords and make sure each site uses a unique password. You then need to enable two-factor authentication on all your accounts (If you had done this to start with then you would have never been in this situation).

Considering your running a business i would not want a compromised Instagram account linked to my page. I would unlink this compromised account and make a brand new Instagram and then link that to your facebook. You can just upload all your photos again and change back to your old one if you ever get it sorted.

Streamside

12 Days on I've been able to reclaim my Instagram account. Hopefully none of you will have to think about it but it's exceptionally difficult to contact Instagram and if your account has been comprised then all codes etc are sent to ,in my case, the Russian email address of the he person who took over your account. GDPR references were the only thing that allowed to eventually communicate with a person.