If you've recently found yourself locked out of Instagram and discovered your login was replaced with a Russian email address, you're not alone.
Mashable first uncovered details on hundreds of Instagram users who took to Twitter and other social platforms over the past month to complain that their accounts had been hacked. Users suddenly found themselves locked out of Instagram, and when they regained account access many discovered that information such as their contact info, bio, handle, and profile image had been changed. One thing the hackers seemingly aren't doing: posting photos or removing old posts.
The Mashable report, which cited data from social analytics platform Talkwalker, found more than 5,000 tweets from 899 accounts mentioning Instagram hacks in the past week alone. There has also been a spike in Google searches for "Instagram hacked" and numerous hacking reports by Reddit users.
Common reports among users noted that profile pictures had been changed to an animated character from Disney or Pixar films, and that their email address had been changed to one with a .ru domain. Some users also had two-factor authentication (2FA) settings turned off.
Instagram responded to the hacking reports in a blog post stating that the social app is investigating the issue. The company also said it's working on additional 2FA functionality, which hasn't been updated since Instagram rolled out the capability back in 2016.
In the meantime, Instagram pointed users to its hacked account page and advised users to change their passwords and revoke access to any suspicious third-party apps.