My Instagram Account Got Hacked. Here’s How I Got It Back.

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

There are 1.386 billion (yes, billion) people using Instagram. Say what you want about the pitfalls or pro/cons of social media, but we’re all living in the digital age whether we want to or not. I don’t have a huge presence on the app, but I use it to document my running, share poetry, and share this blog. I’ve had my account since 2015, so there’s a lot of shit on there that I’d like to keep.

Last week, I clicked a thing I shouldn’t have clicked and closed my phone. A while later, I opened the app and it showed that I was logged out. I tried to log back in but my credentials weren’t working. I checked my email only to find that a hacker had changed the email, password, and phone number associated with my account. Usually Instagram sends an email asking if you’ve changed your login info with an option to revert it but unfortunately, the link to revert the changes was corrupt or broken or whatever. Messages from friends started pouring in, “Sarah, I think you’ve been hacked,” they said. And they were right. Someone was trying to scam people into…I don’t know, buying bitcoin? It was an obvious scam, but whoever hacked me pushed content out through my stories, my page, and direct messages (I do apologize for the spam).