How to read another person’s Instagram messages
You use Instagram on a daily basis and, since you have a fair number of followers, you have the opportunity to often have private conversations with those who follow you. For this reason and given that you are a particularly privacy-conscious person, you are afraid that your account could be hacked and that some attacker could have their eyes on all your messages.
How do you say? Is this really the case? In that case, you do well to worry, as caution is never too much when it comes to cybersecurity. Precisely for this reason, let me give you a hand to sleep more peacefully in this regard. In the next chapters, in fact, I will explain in detail how to read another person’s Instagram messages, illustrating what are the techniques used by attackers to access the data of the victims, including Instagram chats.
Once this is done, I will show you all the procedures aimed at protecting your account and your device, also indicating what to do in case your account is unfortunately hacked. Courage: sit comfortably and take just a few minutes of free time in order to calmly read all the tips that I will give you in this guide and put them into practice. At this point, I just have to wish you a good read and wish you a big good luck for everything!
Index
- Techniques for logging into someone else’s Instagram account
- Social engineering
- Phishing
- Keylogger and spy app
- Attacks on browser databases
- How not to be read Instagram messages
- Protect the Instagram account
- Protect your device
- Do not connect to public Wi-Fi networks
Techniques for logging into someone else’s Instagram account
I start this tutorial by explaining what are the techniques through which malicious people often manage to read another person’s Instagram messages. I do this because knowing what tools and vulnerabilities hackers can exploit can help you defend yourself from them.
Social engineering
One of the best known hacking techniques, as well as the easiest to implement for the bad guys, is social engineering. This is a method aimed at obtaining access to the victim’s device, in such a way as to be able to steal all sensitive data contained within it (including access data to social networks or to various other services and apps) by exploiting good faith and the carelessness of the user to be hit.
For an attacker to implement a technique of this type is quite simple, since usually it is enough to use a simple but credible excuse, to ask the victim to be able to use his device.
Once the victim’s device has been obtained, the cybercriminal can easily browse the data on the device and/or install a spy software or app on the latter, through which to obtain access, even remotely, to all those who are sensitive data on the device.
To protect yourself from social engineering techniques, and also to prevent an attacker from reading Instagram messages through this simple technique, you must absolutely avoid leaving your device unattended and you must never give it into the hands of unknown people or, in any case, which you do not trust blindly.
Phishing
Phishing techniques are equally widespread and consist in sending the intended victim an email or an SMS. Through the latter, pretending to be the security team of a site or a famous social network (eg Instagram), the attacker invites the user to connect to a site and reset their password.
Consequently, when the user-victim visits a link contained within the scam message, believing that he can change the password of his account (for example that of Instagram), he will be redirected to a fake web page with an interface similar to that of the service for which you are expecting to make the password change.
However, since this is a fake web page, the user will fall into a trap, since all the data entered in the false password change screen will be collected by the attacker, who will thus be able to easily access the victim’s account.
Therefore, I suggest that you always pay close attention to the emails and SMS you receive, especially in the case of a communication relating to changing your password. Never visit links that come to you through messages of this type, also because banks, social networks and other famous sites never send such requests without the user directly requesting the restoration of their credentials.
If you are interested in the real procedure to be carried out to change the Instagram password, refer to my tutorial dedicated to the topic.
Keylogger and spy app
Other tools used by attackers to steal sensitive data from users’ devices are keyloggers and spy apps, i.e. software that are able to silently capture everything that is typed on the keyboard of the device on which they are installed (including sensitive data, such as email addresses and passwords) and other data, such as the sites visited, the numbers called and so on.
Identifying and eliminating threats of this type – as they often hide from the user’s eyes, it is not easy; however, there are various solutions that can be put into practice to do so: to find out more in detail which ones, consult my tutorial on how to delete spy software from your mobile phone.
Attacks on browser databases
Among the different techniques that attackers can implement to hack sensitive data on a device, there are the attacks perpetuated against browser databases.
Such attacks are due to the fact that many people use the password managers built into browsers to easily and quickly memorize the accesses to the most visited Internet sites. By exploiting any browser vulnerabilities or user distractions, it is therefore possible to access data to Internet sites and social networks, such as Instagram.
In light of what has just been said – and assuming that the information contained in the browser databases is encrypted – it is recommended to use a good third-party password manager rather than the database included in the navigation program: two of the best examples are 1Password and Bitwarden. More info here.
How not to be read Instagram messages
After explaining the techniques that can be used by attackers to hack an Instagram account, it’s time to talk to you in detail about how to protect your account, to prevent your messages from being read by malicious people. Read on to learn more.
Protect the Instagram account
There are several operations that you can put in place to protect your Instagram account, starting with the use of a secure password, that is, a long, meaningless password, made up of lowercase and uppercase letters, but also numbers and symbols.
To change the password of your Instagram account by acting easily through the app for Android (downloadable from the Play Store or alternative stores ) and iPhone (downloadable from the App Store ), log in to your account, then go to the Settings section > Security> Password, in order to type the current password of your account and choose the new password. In case of doubts or problems, refer to my tutorial in which I write you in detail how to change the password of Instagram.
Furthermore, through the section Settings> Security> Two-factor authentication, you can activate this additional security method, which will require you to enter a security code received via SMS or in an authentication app (recommended) configured by you (for example Google Authenticator for Android and iOS / iPadOS ) every time you want to access your profile from new devices or browsers. For more information about it, refer to my tutorial in which I explain in detail how to activate 2FA on Instagram and what are the other solutions you can implement to avoid getting hacked on Instagram.
Instead, in the event that, unfortunately, someone had already managed to access your account without permission, immediately run for cover by implementing the solutions that I indicated in my guide on how to recover an Instagram account, in which I explained how contact the support of the social network to regain possession of a compromised account.
Protect your device
In addition to protecting your Instagram account, it is equally important that you put in place measures to protect your device. Therefore, what I advise you to do is change the unlock PIN of your device, setting one that is difficult to guess (even if you have activated biometric unlocking systems, such as fingerprint or face recognition).
On Android you can change the unlock PIN by going to the Settings menu > Lock screen security> Screen lock, so you can choose to set a new PIN. Avoid the sequence, as it is easily guessed by watching a person unlock their device.
On iOS, however, you can change the unlock PIN by using the Settings> Touch ID and code> Change code section, in order to enter the old code and then set a new one, being able to choose between a customized alphanumeric code, a custom numeric code or a four-digit numeric code (less recommended).
In addition, another tool that you can consider to protect the Instagram app from unwanted access is the use of native Android and iPhone apps or tools, such as the Norton App Lock app for Android or the Restrictions tool iOS, which allow you to enter passwords to access apps. You can find more information about it in my guide on how to put the password on Instagram.
Do not connect to public Wi-Fi networks
Last but not least, I want to warn you about the potential dangers of public Wi-Fi networks. The latter, in fact, could be subject to sniffing attacks, that is to hacking methods thanks to which the bad guys intercept the data entering and leaving them and, consequently, they can capture all the sensitive data contained in a device connected to it.
Therefore, my advice is not to connect to public Wi-Fi networks or to do so while taking care to protect your device using a VPN, such as NordVPN or Surfshark.
The use of these tools, in fact, is necessary to protect Internet browsing, encrypt all sensitive data contained in your devices and also disguise your geographical position (useful for overcoming many censorships and local restrictions). For more information on this, I suggest you learn more by reading my tutorials dedicated to the general functioning of VPNs and the more specific ones dedicated to NordVPN and Surfshark.