Celebrity Phone Numbers Stolen Using Instagram Bug

A bug in the programming of the popular photo-sharing social media platform Instagram was recently discovered, which is believed to have allowed hackers to steal the private phone numbers of famous celebrities. Although the social network has refused to reveal who the affected individuals were, it would seem that pop-star Selena Gomez was among the victims.

Two days ago, reports came out that the Instagram account of Gomez, who is the platform’s most-followed user was hacked, The Verge reports. It resulted in some pictures of her ex-boyfriend, singer Justin Bieber getting leaked. With the company’s announcement today that a bug has allowed hackers to steal the phone numbers of celebrities, the timing is quite telling.

“We recently discovered that one or more individuals obtained unlawful access to a number of high-profile Instagram users’ contact information — specifically email address and phone number — by exploiting a bug in an Instagram API,” Instagram’s statement reads. “No account passwords were exposed. We fixed the bug swiftly and are running a thorough investigation.”

Despite the reassurances from the platform, Instagram still encouraged its users to be careful when it comes to receiving text messages, calls, and files from unknown sources. At least one case has been confirmed to have exploited the bug, though, the company refuses to provide more specific details.

It’s also worth pointing out that the bug likely did not specifically apply to only celebrity members, TechCrunch reports. Then again, short of stalkers who want to find out the numbers of their former lovers, only high-profile users are really worth targeting with the bug.

With this being the case, supposing that Instagram was able to patch the bug right away, the number of people affected by the exploit might amount to a few dozens, at most. It is still worrying, but those who are just regular users can at least feel at ease in knowing that they were not likely targeted.