Facebook-owned American photo and video sharing social media application, Instagram is one of the most popular platforms where millions of people post pictures and videos every day. Instagram is one place where everyone is active almost all the time, a social media platform for people to be social.
Safety and Privacy are two major aspects of using social media, with cybercrime and hackers, this world can be a very dangerous place and your own smartphone can cause so much damage to you and your reputation. So, is Instagram safe?
BUG DETECTED:
According to sources, there was a major bug detected in Instagram that had put the safety and privacy of users at risk. This bug could have allowed hackers to access the user’s account and could breach the security of your smartphone to get access to contacts, camera, microphone, photos, messages, bank details etc.
A breach of this extent could allow hackers to manipulate Instagram’s Direct Messages Service and gain full access to your account. This bug could leak your location to the hackers if that’s the worst.
Thank God for the checkpoint researchers who caught this bug and immediately reported the same to Facebook and they patched the bug on priority. You can imagine what all could have gone wrong if this wasn’t detected.
WHAT WAS THE BUG?
The talked about bug of Instagram was hidden in the application’s open-source JPEG image decoder known as Mozjpeg. For the hacking to be successful, the hackers would simply send the users a JPEG image on Instagram and if they downloaded the file and restarted the Instagram application again, the RAT malware or the Remote Access Tool malware would activate and the hackers could hack their way into the user’s personal information on their smartphone despite the device permissions set by Instagram.
When a user downloads Instagram for the first time, they give access to Camera, microphone, storage, location and many more to Instagram. All of these privileges had become vulnerable to the bug inside Instagram.
IS INSTAGRAM SAFE TO USE?
According to the checkpoint researchers, they had immediately asked Facebook to right this wrong and they did. This bug affected Instagram on all iOS and Android platforms. It was detected by Checkpoint researchers when they were finding potential flaws and vulnerabilities in Instagram’s third-party projects of which Mozjpeg caught their attention.
Bugs and flaws in applications are increasingly common with the increasing rate of cybercrimes across all platforms. WhatsApp recently disclosed a security disclosure page which talks about all the major bug fixes that have been patched in the past. This shows that Facebook-owned social media platforms are becoming more aware and responsible for cybercrimes and cybersecurity. According to sources, there shall soon be a similar disclosure page of Instagram as well.
As of now, Instagram is safe to use and users can enjoy the photo and video sharing social media platform.
