{"id":974,"date":"2026-01-11T03:21:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T19:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/11\/an-instagram-data-breach-reportedly-exposed-the-personal-info-of-17-5-million-users\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T03:21:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T19:21:05","slug":"an-instagram-data-breach-reportedly-exposed-the-personal-info-of-17-5-million-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/11\/an-instagram-data-breach-reportedly-exposed-the-personal-info-of-17-5-million-users\/","title":{"rendered":"An Instagram data breach reportedly exposed the personal info of 17.5 million users"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you received a bunch of password reset requests from Instagram recently, you&#8217;re not alone. As reported by <a data-i13n=\"elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:1;pos:1\" class=\"no-affiliate-link\" href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/malwarebytes.com\/post\/3mbywfybiil26\">Malwarebytes<\/a>, an antivirus software company, there was a data breach revealing the &#8220;sensitive information&#8221; of 17.5 million Instagram users. Malwarebytes added that the leak included Instagram usernames, physical addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and more.<\/p>\n<p>The company added that the &#8220;data is available for sale on the dark web and can be abused by cybercriminals.&#8221; Malwarebytes noted in an email to its customers that it discovered the breach during its routine dark web scan and that it&#8217;s tied to a potential incident related to an Instagram API exposure from 2024.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The reported breach has resulted in users receiving <a data-i13n=\"elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:2;pos:1\" class=\"no-affiliate-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/Instagram\/comments\/1q93j15\/instagram_data_leak_exposes_sensitive_info_of\/\">several<\/a> <a data-i13n=\"elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:3;pos:1\" class=\"no-affiliate-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/Instagram\/comments\/1q8pcq1\/is_someone_trying_to_hack_me\/\">emails<\/a> from Instagram about password reset requests. According to Malwarebytes, the leaked information could lead to more serious attacks, like phishing attempts or account takeovers. Meta hasn&#8217;t released an official statement about the latest incident, but it&#8217;s not the first time Instagram&#8217;s parent company has been in hot water for <a data-i13n=\"elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:4;pos:1\" class=\"no-affiliate-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/meta-facebook-gdpr-data-breach-eu-fine-173528015.html\">data breaches<\/a>. If you haven&#8217;t already, it&#8217;s always a good idea to turn on two-factor authentication and change your password. Even better, you can review what devices are logged into your Instagram account in Meta&#8217;s Accounts Center.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/cybersecurity\/an-instagram-data-breach-reportedly-exposed-the-personal-info-of-175-million-users-192105616.html?src=rss<\/p><p>Please credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/obagg.com\">OBA Blog<\/a> &raquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/11\/an-instagram-data-breach-reportedly-exposed-the-personal-info-of-17-5-million-users\/\">An Instagram data breach reportedly exposed the personal info of 17.5 million users<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you received a bunch of password reset requests from Instagram recently, you&#8217;re not alone. As reported by Malwarebytes, an antivirus software company, there was a data breach revealing the &#8220;sensitive information&#8221; of 17.5 million Instagram users. Malwarebytes added that the leak included Instagram usernames, physical addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and more. The company added that the &#8220;data is available for sale on the dark web and can be abused by cybercriminals.&#8221; Malwarebytes noted in an email to its customers that it discovered the breach during its routine dark web scan and that it&#8217;s tied to a potential incident related to an Instagram API exposure from 2024. The reported breach has resulted in users receiving several emails from Instagram about password reset requests. According [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-share"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}