Instagram’s Private Profiles Exposed: How Unauthenticated Users Accessed Private Photos

In a shocking revelation that has sent ripples through the tech community, a security researcher has uncovered a critical vulnerability in Instagram’s supposedly secure private profile system. The flaw allowed unauthenticated users to access private photos and captions from accounts that should have been completely shielded from public view.

The Discovery That Rocked Instagram’s Privacy Foundations

Security researcher Jatin Banga stumbled upon what he describes as a “server-side authorization failure” that exposed private Instagram posts to anyone with the right technical knowledge. The vulnerability was particularly insidious because it didn’t require any sophisticated hacking techniques—just the right combination of mobile user agents and headers to trigger the server-side leak.

When accessing private Instagram profiles like Banga’s test account (https://instagram.com/jatin.py), unauthenticated users would see the standard privacy message: “This account is private. Follow to see their photos and videos.” However, beneath this innocent facade, the HTML source code contained embedded links to private photos and captions that should have remained completely inaccessible.

Technical Deep Dive: How the Exploit Worked

The vulnerability resided in Instagram’s backend response system. When certain private profiles were accessed from specific mobile devices, the server would include a polaris_timeline_connection JSON object in the HTML response. This object contained encoded CDN links to photos that were supposed to be protected by Instagram’s privacy settings.

Banga’s extensive testing revealed that approximately 28% of private test profiles he examined were leaking this sensitive information. The researcher was careful to limit his testing to accounts he created himself or had explicit permission to use, ensuring his investigation remained ethical while still demonstrating the scope of the problem.

The video proof-of-concept shared by Banga demonstrates the vulnerability in action, showing how seemingly private content became accessible through server-side misconfiguration rather than any client-side manipulation.

Meta’s Response: Patch Without Acknowledgment

Banga reported the vulnerability to Meta on October 12, 2025, initiating what would become a frustrating exchange with the social media giant. Initially, Meta classified the issue as a CDN caching problem, a characterization Banga strongly disputed. He emphasized that this wasn’t about cached content but rather a fundamental failure in Instagram’s authorization checks before populating server responses.

After multiple exchanges and a lengthy discussion spanning several days, Meta closed the case as “not applicable” while simultaneously fixing the issue. The exploit stopped working around October 16, approximately 102 days after Banga’s initial report—well beyond the standard 90-day coordinated disclosure window.

In their official correspondence, a Meta vulnerability triage analyst stated: “The fact that an unreproducible issue was fixed doesn’t change the fact that it was not reproducible at the time. Even if the issue were reproducible, it’s possible that a change was made to fix a different issue and this issue was fixed as an unintended side effect.”

The Transparency Battle

Banga’s frustration with Meta’s handling of the situation extends beyond the technical aspects of the vulnerability. By going public with his disclosure, he forfeited any potential bug bounty reward, emphasizing that his goal was transparency rather than financial compensation.

“Their negligence and reluctance to investigate the actual root cause—despite having the logs—is the real issue,” Banga told BleepingComputer. He raised serious concerns about how long this vulnerability might have been exploited by malicious actors, noting that “nobody knows how long this has been actually exploited for, since it was not so hard to find.”

Why Traditional Archiving Methods Failed

When asked why he didn’t use the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to preserve evidence of the vulnerability, Banga explained that the service’s crawlers couldn’t capture the exploit because they don’t send the specific mobile user agents and headers required to trigger the server-side leak. This technical limitation meant that traditional archiving methods were ineffective for documenting this particular vulnerability.

The Broader Implications for Social Media Privacy

This incident raises serious questions about the reliability of privacy features on major social media platforms. If Instagram’s private profile system—designed to give users control over who can see their content—can be bypassed through server-side misconfiguration, what other privacy protections might be similarly vulnerable?

The case also highlights the challenges researchers face when trying to responsibly disclose vulnerabilities to large tech companies. Banga’s experience suggests that even when companies fix reported issues, they may be reluctant to acknowledge the severity of the problems or provide detailed explanations of the root causes.

What This Means for Instagram Users

For the millions of Instagram users who rely on private profiles to control their digital footprint, this revelation is particularly concerning. While Meta has apparently fixed this specific vulnerability, the incident serves as a reminder that no online privacy feature is completely foolproof.

Users should remain vigilant about what they share online, even when using privacy features, and should regularly review their account settings and connected applications. The incident also underscores the importance of choosing strong, unique passwords and enabling two-factor authentication wherever possible.

The Future of Social Media Security

As social media platforms continue to evolve and add new features, the complexity of their underlying systems increases, potentially creating new vulnerabilities. This incident demonstrates the critical importance of thorough security testing and the need for transparent communication between researchers and platform owners.

The tech community will undoubtedly be watching closely to see how Meta and other social media companies respond to this incident and whether they implement additional measures to prevent similar privacy failures in the future.

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