My Instagram account has been hacked: what to do, in order
Instagram accounts are taken for a slightly different reason than Facebook ones. Very often the account itself is the prize, to be renamed and resold or used to run investment and giveaway scams at your followers. That has one useful consequence: Instagram sends a warning email the moment the address on an account is changed, and that email contains a link that can undo it. Finding that message is the first thing to do, and this page starts there.
Last checked: 15 August 2026. Every official Facebook, Instagram and Australian government link on this page was opened and confirmed working on that date. If you find one that no longer works, please tell us and we will fix it, because a dead link on a page like this is worse than no page at all.
Do this first: look for the email
When somebody changes the email address on an Instagram account, Instagram sends a message to the old address saying so, and that message contains a link that reverses the change. It is the single quickest way back, and it expires, so it is worth two minutes right now.
Search your email for messages from Instagram, including your junk or spam folder, and look for anything about a changed email address. If it is there, follow the link in it and you may be finished.
If your password no longer works
The official page for this situation:
https://www.instagram.com/hacked
Instagram's dedicated route for an account somebody else has taken. Open it in the Instagram app on your usual phone if you can.
Full walkthrough: someone changed my Instagram password.
If the email and phone were changed too
If the reversal email has expired or never arrived, the route is Instagram's cannot log in flow, which leads to an identity check. For an account with photographs of you on it, that is often a short video selfie, which Instagram compares against your pictures. It feels intrusive and it is genuinely how the system works, but note carefully: it happens inside Instagram's own app or website, never by sending a photograph of yourself to a person who has messaged you.
The official page for this situation:
https://help.instagram.com/374546259294234
The official page for an account you can no longer reach.
Full walkthrough: the hacker changed my Instagram email and phone.
If your account seems to have vanished
If friends say your profile cannot be found, it has usually been renamed or deleted rather than destroyed. A deleted Instagram account stays recoverable for a limited period, which is exactly why this should not wait until the weekend.
Full walkthrough: my Instagram account has been deleted or renamed.
If you can still get in
The official page for this situation:
Instagram: secure your account
https://help.instagram.com/369001149843369
Change the password, review logged in devices, and remove any contact details you do not recognise.
Close the door behind you
- Change the password, and change it anywhere else you used the same one. If that password was also on your email or your banking, those come first, before the social account.
- Check the recovery email address and phone number on the account and remove anything you do not recognise. This is the step people skip, and it is the reason accounts get taken a second time a week later.
- Sign out of all other sessions, so a device the attacker is still holding gets kicked off.
- Turn on two factor authentication, so a stolen password on its own is no longer enough.
- Look at what was posted or sent while they had it, so you know what your friends and family received.
- Tell the people who were messaged, ideally somewhere other than the account that was taken.
The messages you are about to receive
Instagram is where recovery scammers are most active, because posting that you have been hacked is public and easy to watch for. Expect messages within hours.
- Anyone offering a phone number. There is no Meta support line. A number is the clearest single sign you are being scammed.
- Paid recovery agents. Services that promise to get your account back for a fee. They have no access Meta does not give you for free, and the usual outcome is that you pay and nothing happens.
- Anyone who messages you offering to help after you post that you have been hacked, especially on Instagram. Watching for those posts is exactly how they find people.
- Anyone asking for an upfront fee, a gift card, a voucher or a cryptocurrency payment. No legitimate service is paid this way.
- Anyone asking for your password or your two factor code. No real Meta process ever asks a person for these. Sharing the code is how the second theft happens.
- Anyone asking to remote control your computer to fix it for you, unless it is somebody you already know and trust.
- A friend asking you to receive a code for them. That friend has already been taken over, and the code is for your account.
Related pages on this site
- Start at the router , if you are not sure which case you are in.
- Facebook hacked , if it is that as well.
- The people who message offering to help .
- Threats to share private photos .
Frequently asked questions
Is there an Instagram phone number I can call?
No. Instagram has no telephone support line for ordinary accounts, so any number you find belongs to somebody who wants your money or your account. This is worth remembering precisely because the search results look so convincing when you are worried. Everything real happens at instagram.com/hacked and the official help pages, and none of it costs anything. Nobody genuine will ever ring you about your account either, so an incoming call about it is a scam by definition.
Instagram emailed me that my email address was changed. Can I undo it?
Yes, and this is the fastest route back. That message goes to your original address specifically so you can reverse the change, and it contains a link to do exactly that. Check your junk folder if it is not in the inbox. The link is time limited, so use it as soon as you find it rather than leaving it until later.
Why is Instagram asking me to record a video of my face?
Because with the contact details gone, it needs another way to tell that you are the person in the photographs on the account. The check happens inside Instagram's own app or website. Nobody legitimate will ever ask you to send a photograph or video of yourself, or of your identity documents, in a message or an email, and you should treat any such request as a scam.
My account has disappeared completely. Is it gone for good?
Usually not. An account that cannot be found has normally been renamed or deleted rather than wiped, and a deleted Instagram account remains recoverable for a limited window before it goes permanently. That is the reason to start the official flow today rather than at the weekend. Use instagram.com/hacked and work through the identity steps it offers. Search your email for Instagram messages about a changed username or address as well, since those show exactly what was done and when.
Someone is sending investment messages to my followers from my account.
That is the most common use for a stolen Instagram account, and the messages carry weight because they appear to come from you. Warn people by another route, a text or a phone call, and tell them plainly not to send money and never to pass on a code. Then work through the recovery steps here, because stopping the access is what ends it.
Should somebody with lots of followers do anything different?
The steps are the same, but move faster, because a larger account is a more valuable target and is monetised harder in the first day. Warn your audience early through any other channel you have, since your followers are the people being defrauded in your name. If money changed hands, that becomes a Scamwatch and ReportCyber matter as well. Do not accept help from anybody who messages you offering it, however professional they seem.