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How I Could Have Hacked Any Instagram Account

thezerohack.com

11–20 of 138 posts

Re: How I Could Have Hacked Any Instagram Account

#11
Is this reset mechanism conceptually flawed? Even with one attempt before invalidating the code, you have a 1:999,999 shot of stealing someone's account by lotto. Not bad odds for an automated process.

It's like every account on Instagram has an alternative six digit password.

Re: How I Could Have Hacked Any Instagram Account

#12
Using a phone number for password reset seems like a terrible idea in general, especially if you have SMS-based 2FA. Phone numbers are way to easy to social engineer, and if your second factor can reset your first one, you don't have 2FA.

Also if I am reading it correctly, it sounds like the rate limiting was being done per-IP, which sounds strange. Why wouldn't Instagram just allow a fixed number of tries (some low limit, like 25) from any IP before invalidating the code? I don't really see a scenario where it makes sense to have per-IP rate limiting here. I guess they are probably just using the rate limiting features which are built in to whatever framework Instagram is using for their API.

Re: How I Could Have Hacked Any Instagram Account

#13
Could someone explain how this person is allowed to do that type of testing (sending 200,000 requests)? How would Facebook know he is a white hat and not a black hat?

I would be interested in starting to try some of these programs, but a bit scared I'd be doing something illegal... Where is the line?

Re: How I Could Have Hacked Any Instagram Account

#14

Could someone explain how this person is allowed to do that type of testing (sending 200,000 requests)? How would Facebook know he is a white hat and not a black hat? I would be interested in starting to try some of these programs, but a bit scared I'd be doing something illegal... Where is the line?

They have a bug bounty program that gives you permission to do certain kinds of things and it not be illegal since you’re planning to report anything you find (and get paid for it)

Re: How I Could Have Hacked Any Instagram Account

#15

Could someone explain how this person is allowed to do that type of testing (sending 200,000 requests)? How would Facebook know he is a white hat and not a black hat? I would be interested in starting to try some of these programs, but a bit scared I'd be doing something illegal... Where is the line?

If you want to test a company look at their 'Responsible disclosure'. For example: https://www.facebook.com/whitehat

Re: How I Could Have Hacked Any Instagram Account

#16

I spot-checked some of those IPs in the video, and it appears all of them are on Amazon. So, what does the attacker's stack look like? Is it a bunch of servers running PHP and listening for a connection to run curl? Or Lambda functions configured to proxy the connection attempt to IG? Curious how much effort goes into setting up an attack like this. It's surprising (to me) that so many IPs can be used for so little m…

I'm curious too, how would he set up so many machines that do the same thing?

Re: How I Could Have Hacked Any Instagram Account

#17

Could someone explain how this person is allowed to do that type of testing (sending 200,000 requests)? How would Facebook know he is a white hat and not a black hat? I would be interested in starting to try some of these programs, but a bit scared I'd be doing something illegal... Where is the line?

The actual "bug" is that Facebook did not have sufficient controls in place to even detect this type of brute-force attack, much less make it impossible to attempt in the first place. Facebook seems (IN THIS INSTANCE) to have appreciated the white-hat nature of this and awarded the bug bounty, but it very well might not have. And certainly other organizations don't take nearly as friendly stances. Generally, I wouldn't bet on most organizations seeing brute-force attacks as in-scope for bug bounties - this is by no means legal advice though.

Re: How I Could Have Hacked Any Instagram Account

#18
post #16

I spot-checked some of those IPs in the video, and it appears all of them are on Amazon. So, what does the attacker's stack look like? Is it a bunch of servers running PHP and listening for a connection to run curl? Or Lambda functions configured to proxy the connection attempt to IG? Curious how much effort goes into setting up an attack like this. It's surprising (to me) that so many IPs can be used for so little m…

I'm curious too, how would he set up so many machines that do the same thing?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38032666/how-to-create-a...

Re: How I Could Have Hacked Any Instagram Account

#19
post #16

I spot-checked some of those IPs in the video, and it appears all of them are on Amazon. So, what does the attacker's stack look like? Is it a bunch of servers running PHP and listening for a connection to run curl? Or Lambda functions configured to proxy the connection attempt to IG? Curious how much effort goes into setting up an attack like this. It's surprising (to me) that so many IPs can be used for so little m…

I'm curious too, how would he set up so many machines that do the same thing?

He's probably lambda rather than EC2 or even docker but I'd be interested to know the details too.

Re: How I Could Have Hacked Any Instagram Account

#20

Using a phone number for password reset seems like a terrible idea in general, especially if you have SMS-based 2FA. Phone numbers are way to easy to social engineer, and if your second factor can reset your first one, you don't have 2FA. Also if I am reading it correctly, it sounds like the rate limiting was being done per-IP, which sounds strange. Why wouldn't Instagram just allow a fixed number of tries (some low…

I have turned off phone 2FA on all services that permit me to do so after getting hacked by someone using that exploit. Typically I use Google 2FA via Authy or Authy itself
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