On Nov. 7, a statement was released across social media platforms that UW’s official Instagram account @uofwaterloo was hacked. Today on Nov. 12, the account has been fully recovered and is now active. The account posted on its Instagram story stating that upon reviewing the activity log, no activity appeared to have been performed by the hacker. 

When hacked, the account handle was changed and the profile photo was removed. No content changes were made, leaving the recovered account in the same supposed condition. The statement asked users to not engage in direct messages with the account while investigation and account recovery was underway. 

During this time, Imprint reached out to UW spokesperson Rebecca Elming, director of media relations and issues management. She directed in the email the statement made on Facebook under the University of Waterloo page, but the same link no longer leads to the post: “This content isn’t available right now. When this happens, it’s usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it’s been deleted.” No further comment was provided by Elming when asked how the account was hacked or of any cautions to take. 

The incident brings to question UW’s cybersecurity procedures. Earlier in September 2024, a privacy breach was reported on Reddit where the co-op office CECA had revealed U.S. co-op students’ home addresses in a spreadsheet uploaded on LEARN. Although no explicit activity was found from the hacker, it still brings to concern information they would have been able to access, such as viewing direct messages. Above all, it marks vulnerabilities in UW’s practices. A comment on a r/uwaterloo Reddit post by u/mercurycc regarding the hack reads, “Security is more of an art than science.”