Between 2012 when Instagram was launched and 2015 when I logged back into my account there were a number of breaches of note, including Yahoo, Adobe, eBay, JP Morgan, LinkedIn and Target. These data breaches may include things like passwords and email addresses. In the news every so often, we see a company suffering a data breach.

In 2015 my career in IT Security was budding, and to save myself the embarrassment of having a hacked account, I immediately changed my password and unfollowed all unknown accounts. I had a million and one questions running through my head as to how this could happen. Well, perhaps my hacked Instagram account could have been. Yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, I may have once been an attractive woman doing a suggestive pose to lure people into following me back or click on a link. When I signed in, I could see that my account had been following thousands of people unknown to me. I then removed the app and didn’t sign into the app again until 2015. When the popularity of the Android app grew, I signed up to an account and uploaded a single picture to see what the fuss was about. In April 2012, Instagram was launched on Android devices. Today it’s Data Privacy Day, and to celebrate I’m going to tell you the story of how my leaked data was used against me by hackers to login to my Instagram account.

I’m going to share a deep dark secret with you

Quite often these are hijacked accounts used by a cybercriminal to exploit your sexual desires. The person in the profile picture of these accounts probably looks nothing like the person requesting to follow or befriend me. I’m not just showing off that I get the occasional friend request from an attractive lady. Every so often I receive an unsolicited friend request on social media from an attractive woman doing a suggestive pose in her profile picture.

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