Instagram Expands 2FA Support Following Recent Wave of Account Hacks

Catalin Cimpanu

August 28, 2018
02:49 PM
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Instagram 2FA

Instagram announced today plans to improve its two-factor authentication (2FA) mechanism by adding support for third-party authenticator apps.

The announcement comes just two weeks after several news outlets reported a wave of Instagram account hacks, some of which had 2FA enabled.

Prior to today, Instagram 2FA only supported SMS-based two-step verification. Starting today, users will be able to use one-time codes generated by third-party "authenticator apps," instead of the code they receive via SMS.

To use a third-party app to log into your Instagram account, go to your profile, tap the menu icon, select “Settings” at the bottom and then choose “Two-Factor Authentication.” Select “Authentication App” as your preferred form of authentication. If you already have an authentication app installed, we will automatically find the app and send a login code to it. Go to the app, retrieve the code and enter it on Instagram, and two-factor authentication will turn on automatically. If you don’t have one installed yet, we will send you to the App Store or Google Play Store to download the authenticator app of your choice. Once you’ve installed it, return to Instagram to continue setting up your two-factor authentication.

Instagram says that support for third-party authenticator apps has begun to roll out today and will become available for users all over the globe in the coming weeks.

New features to combat influence campaigns

But this wasn't the only feature that the Instagram staff rolled out today. The company is also launching "verified accounts," and a new feature that shows an account's history.

These two features are meant to provide more context to users about the Instagram users they follow.

The second tool is especially useful. Users will be able to see the date an account joined Instagram, the country where the account is located, the accounts with shared followers, any username changes in the last year, and any ads the account is currently running.

The launch of this tool comes weeks after Facebook admitted that Russian and Iranian actors had accounts on Instagram, which they used for political influence campaigns.

Nevertheless, the account history tool will also be useful in the case of account takeovers —when hackers hijack and rename accounts with high follower counts to show ads or resell the profile to the highest bidder.

Instagram account history tool