TECH

Instagram has stored sensitive user data for over a year

When you delete something from Instagram, it's obvious that you're counting on it to disappear forever. However, in reality, it turned out that this was not the case. IT security researcher Saugat Pokharel was able to obtain copies of his photos and messages, which were deleted from Instagram more than a year ago. This indicates that the information deleted by users does not disappear from the social network servers.
Instagram announced that this was due to a bug in their system, which has now been fixed. In addition, the researcher received a reward of $100,000 for discovering this error. According to reports, Pokharel identified the problem in October 2019 and was fixed earlier this month.
"The researcher reported an issue that resulted in images and messages from some Instagram users being deleted from the backup if they used the Upload Your Information tool. We fixed the problem and found no evidence that this error was being exploited. We would like to thank the researcher for informing us about the problem, ”commented an Instagram representative on the subject.
It is not yet clear how widespread the problem was and whether it affected all Instagram users or only a subset of them. Typically, when a user removes any information from online services or social networks, it takes some time before it disappears from internal servers. As for Instagram, according to official data, deleted user information continues to be stored on social network servers for 90 days, after which it is irrevocably deleted.

AVnews