From Casual Scrolling to Bug Bounty: My Unexpected Instagram Bug

Hello Folks
It’s been a long time, probably more than a year, since my last blog. I’ve been quite busy with office work, and as many of you know, I’m currently not doing bug bounty full-time.

This discovery was completely unexpected and happened while casually scrolling through Instagram. Interestingly, the affected feature is well-known and widely used.

Without wasting any more time, let’s dive in!

Almost everyone uses Instagram, right? I’m pretty sure the answer is yes. And of course, most of us post stories, it’s a common way to showcase our day-to-day life (even though, honestly, nobody really cares 😂).

As we know, Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours. But many people like to keep their “story flex” alive by using another Instagram feature: Highlights 😇.

Yup, you guessed it, the bug I found was in Instagram Highlights 😂.

As you all know, Instagram lets you select and add multiple stories into a Highlight.

When you do this, the first story you add automatically becomes the thumbnail for that Highlight. Pretty straightforward, right??

Now, this is where things got… interesting.
I was casually adding stories to my Highlights one day. On my main account, I had created a Highlight just for my bike 🏍️.

It had multiple stories different photos and moments I’d shared. Naturally, the very first story (a picture I clicked while purchasing my bike at the showroom) became the thumbnail.

But honestly… it looked a little weird as the Highlight thumbnail. And I thought no problem, I’ll just delete that story from Highlight. If the first story goes away, the second one should automatically take its place as the thumbnail. Normal behavior, right?

Well… not really. Here’s the twist.

After deleting the first story, I expected the second story (which was now the first in order) to become the new thumbnail. That’s logical. That’s how it should work.
But instead… the deleted story was still showing up as the Highlight thumbnail! 😳

Yes, you read that right. The thumbnail remained stuck on the deleted story, while the Highlight itself had moved on with the other stories. And that’s the exact moment I realized 👉 this was a bug.

Timeline:

• Reported to Meta Bug Bounty: Monday, March 31, 2025 at 10:36 AM
• Pre-Validated: Monday, March 31, 2025 at 11:57 AM
• Need More Info: Thursday, April 3, 2025 at 3:12 AM
  (Meta asked me to share my Instagram username to investigate the deletion process I followed)
• Triaged: Sunday, April 6, 2025 at 12:21 AM
• Bounty Rewarded: Friday, August 15, 2025 at 4:44 PM
  (with a bonus + as payout was issued 83 days)
• Fixed: Monday, September 8, 2025 at 7:57 PM