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Tue, 02 Jun 2026

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 Instagram AI chatbot tricked by hackers to give access to others' accounts

Some reports have linked the incident to recent cases of high-profile Instagram accounts being hijacked.
Instagram has fixed an issue that allowed hackers to gain access to other users' accounts through its AI chatbot support tool. Reports emerged on social media of people being able to "hijack" accounts by faking their location and asking the bot to change email addresses associated with them. This would then allow the hacker to change the account's password. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed that the issue had been resolved and said claims that world leaders' accounts were hacked using this method were "totally false". The vulnerability was reportedly used in a series of high-profile Instagram account takeovers, including one used by Barack Obama when he was in office. It is unclear how many accounts were affected, but security researcher Jane Manchun Wong claimed her own password was changed without her knowledge and she had seen repeated password reset attempts. The incident has raised concerns about the security risks posed by AI systems and their increasing use in customer support.