Meta says roughly 20,000 Instagram accounts may have been hacked in a recent attack abusing an AI-powered account recovery support tool.
Hackers compromised many Instagram accounts simply by asking Meta’s chatbot to link their own email address to the targeted account. This enabled the hackers to reset the account password and take control of it.
Many high-profile accounts were reportedly compromised and sold on the dark web. The list of impacted accounts included those of the Obama White House, Sephora, and US Space Force Chief Master Sergeant John Bentivegna.
Some cybercriminals shared videos and instructions on how the attack worked.
Meta is now informing authorities about the incident’s impact, telling the Maine Attorney General’s Office that the total number of potentially affected individuals is 20,225.
