The incident comes amid concerns about the impact of increasingly capable and common AI systems on people’s data and security.
Videos shared on social media purported to show how Instagram hacks could take place.
One, shared by cybersecurity researcher Dark Web Informer on X, showed someone searching for the username of an account they wished to gain access to as part of Instagram’s recovery process.
They were also shown to be using a virtual private network (VPN) service to pretend to be in the real account holder’s location.
After selecting the account they wanted to access, they sent a message to Instagram’s Meta AI support assistant asking to link a new email to the account and send it a verification code.
The bot followed through with the request – sending a code to the hacker’s email which, when verified, was followed by an email with a link to change their password.
One X user wrote that they had been unable to find “human support”, external after their Instagram account was hacked.
“We’re at the point where one AI stole it and another can’t fix it, zero humans in the loop anywhere,” they said.
The BBC has asked Meta whether human support workers are available to help users whose accounts have been hacked.
The company has faced scrutiny over lack of support for users when their accounts are hacked or suspended in error.
An independent body which hears disputes from social media users in the EU said last week that Meta virtually never replies when it raises cases of people who say they have been wrongly banned from their accounts.
It also recently made huge cuts to its workforce amid billions of dollars of spending on AI.
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