Instagram has rewarded Neeraj Sharma, a student from Jaipur, with cash of ₹38 lakh for saving social media accounts from being hacked. According to reports, Sharma detected a bug in Facebook’s Instagram, through which thumbnails of user accounts could be changed by hackers without login credentials.
Sharma first encountered issues with his Instagram account in December last year. He later identified the bug and sent a report to Facebook on January 31, 2022. It highlighted the possibility of altering the thumbnail of a public reel, according to Facebook. Sharma was then asked to share a demo, following which Instagram investigated the issue.
“Thanks for your report. We have made changes in our infrastructure to prevent similar bugs from occurring in the future,” Facebook wrote a mail to Sharma in May this year and informed him about the cash reward. The social media giant also gave $4,500 as a bonus for delaying the reward by four months.