The contact details of nearly 50 million users of photo sharing site Instagram have been shared on a massive unsecured online database, according to reports.
It contains personal details such as emails and phone numbers of high profile influencers, celebrities and brand accounts, according to TechCrunch.
The database, discovered by security researcher Anurag Sne, was traced by the tech news site to a Mumbai-based social media marketing firm.
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, said it was investigating whether data had been improperly stored.
“We are investigating whether a third party improperly stored Instagram data, in violation of our policies,” a spokesman said.
“It's also not clear whether the phone numbers and emails in Chtrbox's database came from Instagram.
“Regardless, the possibility of third parties mishandling user data is something we take seriously, which is why we’re quickly working to understand what happened.”
The database itself was stored on an Amazon server and was not protected with a password.
TechCrunch said the recorded data - the number of which was “growing by the hour” - also included the users’ location.
The incident comes two years after Instagram admitted a security bug in its developer API allowed hackers to obtain the email addresses and phone numbers of six million Instagram accounts.
