Instagram Tries to Save Customer Data via Buying Doxagram Domains

August 30th, the photo sharing platform, Instagram, confessed that some hackers had exploited a bug on Instagram to sneak out account information of several “High-Profiled” users.

Few days after the confession, a hacker group by the name 'Doxagram' claimed responsibility for the hack and offered details of the stolen accounts for mere $10 per lookup. The service was being offered on an underground internet market.

On Thursday, the hackers created a website that had, on sale, the emails and phone numbers of 6 million customers of Instagram including Christanio Ronaldo, Jennifer Lopez, Drake, as well as personal information of the gen-pop.

Instagram s now trying to fight back aggressively to protect its customer data. The company has bought hundreds of Doxagram domains over the past few days with the intention of giving the hackers a hard time in spreading the exposed data.

The goal behind this act was to force the hackers onto a site that will be difficult for buyers to find out or to force 'Doxagram' entirely offline.

However, all these efforts made by Instagram might be of no use since it is nearly impossible for them to buy each single domain and even if they did hackers have already moved to the dark web where there can easily create and manage their website.

The owners of Doxagram claimed their site made more than $4,100 so far.

Ankush Johar, director at HumanFirewall.io, said: "Even though Instagram has put in efforts to save its customers data from getting leaked, it might not stop the hackers from selling the data online. The hackers can quite easily switch to dark web services and sell all of the customers data just as with the current $10 service. Instagram users must not be assume their information to be safe. The information sold online can be used for phishing campaigns at mass and it is inevitable. Simple tip for users: Think before you click on any link in your email/SMS!

"Your email and your phone number, both can be used to reset and hijack your account. It’s extremely important now to make sure that these are safe. Avoid opening emails from untrusted sources and pay close attention to what permissions you are allowing an application on your smartphone. Use the multi-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security to your account. Stay cautious, Stay safe!”