'Ignore Those Emails': Meta Clarifies Amid Fears Of 17.5 Million Instagram Users' Data Being Breached
"We fixed an issue that let an external party request password reset emails for some people. There was no breach of our systems and your Instagram accounts are secure," the company said.
Meta, the social media giant that owns Instagram, issued a denial after internet users claimed that the data of 17.5 million users of the photo and short-video sharing app was breached.
The company, in a statement, clarified that there was no breach of data. The issue that led to users being asked to reset their passwords has been "fixed", it said, while noting that password-resetting emails can be ignored by the Instagram users.
"We fixed an issue that let an external party request password reset emails for some people. There was no breach of our systems and your Instagram accounts are secure. You can ignore those emails — sorry for any confusion," the official social media handle of Instagram stated.
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The issue was brought to the fore over the weekend, when Malwarebytes, a software firm, claimed in a social media post that sensitive data of around 17.5 million Instagram users was leaked.
“Cybercriminals stole the sensitive information of 17.5 million Instagram accounts, including usernames, physical addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and more. This data is available for sale on the dark web and can be abused by cybercriminals,” it said in a post on microblogging platform Bluesky.
Meta, notably, is the owner of Facebook and Instagram. In 2021, it came under criticism over the alleged data breach of over 530 million Facebook users. The company, however, had then clarified that the incident was not a breach but linked to the scraping of data from publicly accessible profiles.
