Instagram’s recent security bug exposes some users’ passwords

Social media platform Instagram recently came under the attack of a security flaw, due to which passwords of users were accidentally exposed.

According to a report by The Information, Instagram suffered a security bug recently that exposed some of its users’ passwords. However, the bug was fixed and Instagram made sure to notify the affected users as well.

The bug was related to a feature released back in April that allows users to download all of their data. The Verge reported, a spokesperson for the company also informed that the issue was ‘discovered internally and affected a very small number of people’.

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The company stated that the few victims who used the feature had their passwords included in a URL in their web browser and those passwords were later stored on Facebook’s servers, Instagram’s parent company.

Instagram notified the affected users and clarified that soon after detecting the bug, it fixed the feature to stop password exposure and deleted all the data. It also advised users that they should, for the safe side, change their passwords.

“If someone submitted their login information to use the Instagram ‘Download Your Data’ tool, they were able to see their password information in the URL of the page. This information was not exposed to anyone else, and we have made changes so this no longer happens,” Instagram said in a statement to The Verge.