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Your Instagram account may have been compromised by hackers, too

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Not good.
Not good.

Image: Thomas Trutschel / getty

You didn’t forget that Facebook owns Instagram, did you?

That little fact is extra germane today following the news that at least 50 million Facebook users, and possibly 90 million, had their accounts accessed by hackers. And, it turns out, those users’ Instagram accounts could have been compromised, too. 

Here’s the key detail: You can log into your Instagram account with your Facebook account. And, if you used your affected Facebook account to log into your Instagram account, hackers would have been able to access that account as well. 

Not a good idea.

Image: screenshot / instagram

To make matters worse, according to Krebs on Security, it’s not just hacked individuals’ Instagram accounts that were vulnerable. Potentially every third-party service that lets you log in with Facebook is vulnerable, too.

Think Tinder, Uber, and so, so many others. 

Facebook’s VP of product management Guy Rosen confirmed as much on an afternoon phone call with reporters. 

Importantly, the company at present doesn’t have any evidence that attackers actually gained access to Instagram accounts. But don’t think everything is chill just yet. As Facebook repeatedly insisted both in its official statement and on the conference call, the investigation is still in its early stages. 

Meaning, there’s still a lot about the hack that the company doesn’t know. Fun, right?

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