Instagram and its high government, Adam Mosseri, have been in all probability each relieved to be taught not too long ago that Mosseri remains to be alive—each in the actual world and the digital one.

As reported by Motherboard, the platform by chance locked Mosseri’s account in September and reported him as lifeless, after a web based troll managed to trick it into doing so.

Mosseri, who beforehand worked directly for Facebook overseeing the social media big’s Newsfeed characteristic, went to work for Instagram (additionally owned by Facebook) in 2018 and has served as the pinnacle of the corporate ever since. As such, you’d assume that Instagram would know whether or not the Israeli businessman is alive or not however, apparently, it doesn’t have the perfect monitor document with that.

An nameless trickster going by the identify “Syenrai” not too long ago managed to get Mosseri’s profile flagged as belonging to somebody who had “passed away.” They did this by juking Instagram’s “Memorialization” course of—a newish characteristic used to tell apart the accounts of former customers who’re not residing.

Somewhat morbidly, Instagram rushed the characteristic into manufacturing final yr amidst a rising Covid-19 loss of life toll. “We’ve been working on these updates for some time, though this is one — among others — that we’ve accelerated in light of COVID-19 to help support our community during a difficult time,” an organization spokesperson told Buzzfeed News, final April.

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The loved ones of a deceased user can submit an application to memorialize their account. Once an account is memorialized, it becomes locked—meaning nobody can log in to make additional changes to its appearance or settings. Instagram then adds “Remembering” to the front of the deceased user’s name, and will also issue the following notice on the profile: “This account has been memorialized. Memorialized accounts are a place to remember and celebrate someone’s life after they’ve passed away.”

If the chums or household of a consumer desires to provoke this course of, they’ll fill out a form on Instagram’s web site with the deceased’s private particulars. For proof of loss of life, the corporate asks for an uploaded loss of life certificates however can even apparently settle for a screenshot or a URL hyperlink to an obituary or information article that references the individual’s loss of life.

However, Syenrai found a pretty basic hack for this whole process: Engineering a fake online obituary that it could feed into Instagram’s authentication system. Instagram confirmed to Motherboard that the whole incident had occurred but noted that it had “quickly resolved the issue.”

However, the fraudster, speaking with the outlet, claims that the whole process would not have been resolved so quickly had the person in question not been the company’s top executive. “I find it ridiculous how Instagram lets such things even happen on their platform in the first place,” they told Motherboard.

It’s unclear if Instagram has since changed its authentication process to make it more rigorous. We reached out to the company for comment and will update this story when more information becomes available.