Facebook-owned Instagram is testing new ways to make it easier for users to recover hacked accounts. This is a very welcome move, as accounts getting hacked is nothing new in today’s day and age and an in-app recovery process will make sure that it is not a painful process for users to get back access back.
Instagram is even taking steps to combat situations where hackers change the username and contact data that is linked to the accounts. The app will now offer a safeguard that will prevent anyone from changing the username from being changed for a particular “period of time” after account changes take place. This is applicable in hacks or even in voluntary cases.
Apart from this, in order to recover their accounts, users will be asked to fill in their personal details like their original email IDs or phone number. The company will also send them a six-digit code to the contact information of their choice. The report about this change in recovery information first surfaced on Engadget.
With the new method, Instagram intends to ensure that account recover is a simple process for the user even if the hacker alters the user name or contact information that is linked to the account.
The photo-sharing app has said that it intends to prevent hackers from using the email ID or phone number codes or take over accounts using a different device. Currently, the feature is being tested with select users. There is no word on the wider availability of the in-app feature. However, we should point out that the username lockdown feature is now available to all the Android users and will soon be deployed to iOS users too.
As of now, if you have to recover a hacked account on Instagram, you either have to wait for a recovery email or fill out a support form. But then, many users have found the process to be a time-consuming one.
The new recovery process is definitely a welcome move and it lets users recover the account from within the app itself.
It is worth mentioning that the decision of the app comes two months after Facebook admitted that there was a security issue on the app because of which 200-300 million passwords were being saved as plain text since 2012. The company also said that it had fixed the issue.
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