Instagram has admitted that there was a bug in its system which allowed hackers to access private information of major celebrities, including Selena Gomez.
Earlier this week on Monday, Selena Gomez's account was hacked, and they made it all about her ex boyfriend, Justin Bieber. Hackers posted nude photos of him. The picture was deleted and her account temporarily deactivated shortly after. Her page has since been restored.
According to reports, it is not likely that the bug was the sole cause of the hack, but it could have aided attempts by the hackers to gain personal information, such as passwords and phone numbers.
A spokesperson for the firm said '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. No account passwords were exposed. We fixed the bug swiftly and are running a thorough investigation.'
They added 'At this point we believe this effort was targeted at high-profile users so, out of an abundance of caution, we are notifying our verified account holders of this issue.'
Instagram bosses are now warning users to look out for phone numbers, calls, texts and emails that they were not expecting, and to be wary.
