Instagram released several new features to improve user account security. One of them is a website to restore hijacked Instagram accounts.
The Meta subsidiary launched the site Instagram.com/hacked, a new feature for reporting and resolving account-related issues. This feature is intended to help users who are victims of account hijacking who have difficulty accessing their accounts.
This site will be very useful if the user cannot login to his account. Users can ask for help recovering a hijacked account, reporting an impersonator account, forgetting a password, or losing access to two-factor authentication (2FA).
After selecting one of the problems at hand, users can simply follow the instructions on the screen to be able to access their account again. If a user has multiple Instagram accounts, they can also select the account with the problem.
So far, recovering a hijacked Instagram account is not an easy matter. In 2018, Motherboard reported that some users were forced to pay a ransom to hackers to get their accounts back.
Apart from that, Instagram also released a security feature where users who have trouble logging in can ask two of their friends to confirm their identity, as quoted from The Verge, Monday (19/12/2022).
The two selected friends are given 24 hours to respond to the verification request. If the request is accepted, Instagram will give the account owner the option to reset the password.
Instagram also said it would be exploring ways to stop account hijacking before it happens. One way is to send a warning to users if they are being followed by an account that may be impersonating someone else.
Finally, Instagram will also show blue ticks for verified accounts in more places. Apart from profiles, blue ticks will also appear on Stories, DMs and feeds.