The gist: Meta’s internal IT support AI chatbot was deliberately misused by attackers for social engineering in Instagram account takeovers.
Meta’s IT support chatbot, an AI released in spring, was exploited by attackers to take over accounts on Instagram. The bot proved too cooperative when faced with social engineering requests.
Meta released an AI chatbot for internal IT support processes in spring. This bot was designed to support employees with technical questions and accelerate administrative tasks. In practice, however, a significant security vulnerability emerged: the chatbot assisted attackers posing as employees in transferring Instagram accounts.
The bot was apparently not sufficiently hardened against social engineering techniques. Attackers were able to manipulate it through deception to provide information or execute actions necessary for account takeovers. This points to insufficient authorization checks and a failure to detect suspicious request patterns.
For CISOs, this is a textbook example of an internal threat scenario: an AI solution implemented for efficiency gains becomes an attack vector when authentication and context validation are not adequately implemented. The incident underscores the need to secure even internal tools such as support bots against impersonation and social engineering — for instance through multi-factor authentication, context checks, and strict policies for sensitive operations.
Source: www.heise.de · Published June 2, 2026
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