In the last few days, popular social media site Instagram, now owned by Facebook, appears to be experiencing an assault on user accounts.  Some users have complained that their account password and email has been changed leaving them unable to access their accounts.  News reports suggest this widespread hacking campaign is originating from Russian sources.  Many accounts affected have had their profile pictures replaced with snapshots from popular movies such as Despicable Me 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Users began noticing since last Saturday that their devices were being logged out of their Instagram accounts, but then many users were unable to log back into their account with their password, suggesting the accounts are being compromised and information is being changed to prevent the original owners of the accounts from accessing their data. Many of these users have reported that when they attempted resetting their passwords, the email where the password was being sent to ended with “.ru”.