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martyb writes:

Instagram Website Leaked Phone Numbers and Emails for Months, Researcher Says:

Instagram's website leaked user contact information, including phone numbers and email addresses, over a period of at least four months, a researcher says.

The source code for some Instagram user profiles included the account holder's contact information whenever it loaded in a web browser, says David Stier, a data scientist and business consultant, who notified Instagram shortly after he discovered the problem earlier this year. The contact information wasn't displayed on the account holder's profiles on the desktop version of the Instagram website, although it was used by the photo-sharing site's app for communication. It isn't clear why the information was included in the website's source code.

The exposure appeared to include contact information for thousands of accounts, which belonged to private individuals -- some of whom were minors -- along with businesses and brands, Stier said. Including the information in the source code could let hackers scrape the data from the Instagram website, allowing them to assemble a virtual phone book that lists the contact details of thousands of Instagram users.

Pictures, or it didn't happen! Oh, wait./

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