5 Foolproof Ways To Protect Your Social Media From Hackers

 

Social media is such a critical part of the business and our lives these days which makes it extremely important to protect social media from hackers. Just imagine what would happen if someone gained access to your accounts? It would be completely devastating and it could potentially have a severe negative impact on your life or business.

Things like:

• Stealing your social media account and changing the handle to take your hard-earned followers.
• Or, Sending out the compromised links to your social media followers.
• Or, Attempting to phish personal information and card details from your customers.

How to know that your social media accounts are hacked?

We have mentioned some of the signs that show a hacker has hacked your social media account(s):

• If you are not able to log in your account.
• If someone has attempted or signed into from another device in your account and you are receiving notification of it.
• If someone(possibly a hacker) is posting some content, pictures or videos, etc. on your social media account.

What should you do if your social media account has been hacked?

In today’s world, we all are on some or other platforms and we need to keep social media safe. If someone hacks your Facebook or Twitter, or Instagram accounts, you should follow these steps to prevent the loss or spread of crucial or misleading information via your account:

• If you receive a notification on your device that someone is trying to access or log into your account and if that is not you, you must change your password instantly.
• However, if you cannot access your social media account at the moment, it probably means that someone has hacked it. The first thing that you should do is try to recover your account using the recovery options that are available on that social media platform or app.
• If recovery options have not helped you, then ask your friends to report your account by selecting an option “pretending to be someone”. By the help of mass reporting, the social media platform team will consider it as a spam or identity threat and will block your account. In this way, the hacker would not be able to spread any misleading information to your contacts.
• Then, contact the support team of that social media platform to help you get your account back.
• And you should inform all your friends that your account might be hacked and they must not respond to any link or message sent to them via your account as hackers might try to earn money from your contacts via clicking on some malicious links.

If you are using a similar password on any other social media platform, then immediately change the password of all your social media accounts by keeping it different.

How to Protect Social Media Accounts from Hackers?

It is much better to take precautions than to regret it later. That is why we must learn How to protect your social media accounts from hackers. Here are some ways by which you can protect social media from hackers.

1. Be selective with third-party applications.

To protect social media from hackers, you should be very selective with third-party applications. When you use a third-party application like a social media post scheduler, they will need access to your account. You should ensure that you are only authorizing legitimate applications to gain access. And make sure that you read the details of what exactly you are authorizing the particular application to gain access to.

Some applications will require only minimal permission, for instance, the ability to read or post the content, so you should always read the fine print before granting access. It is a good idea to login to all of your social media accounts and sees which applications you are currently allowing to access your profiles.

2. Use strong passwords.

Remembering passwords that are considered to be “strong” can be a pain in the rear. Even the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, wasn’t too fond of difficult passwords until he was hacked.

His Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest accounts were hacked and his password was later revealed to be “Dadada” of his accounts. This just goes to show you that the majority of people do not take their password strength too seriously and they think that“It will never happen to me.”

Well, it can happen to you or us, so ensure that you use a password that is difficult to crack. Several tools such as How Secure Is My Password will help you to rate your password strength. For instance, it is said that it would take a computer about 552 quadrillion years to crack the “Secure100Password3!” password. 

3. Install antivirus software.

Your internet service providers (ISPs) will also provide some form of security protection to your social media platform. You can also compare the local ISPs to check whether there are better options available in your immediate area, or you can download an antivirus program on your computer, such as AVG, which offers you a free version. We would suggest you go with the pro version, but if you are on a budget-friendly end the free version is better than no protection at all.

If you want to be extra safe, you need to choose tools like Vibbi to allow you to download and backup all of your images and videos on Instagram. These tools are especially convenient for brands that spend extra time and money editing custom content.

4. Enable two-factor authentication.

Two-factor authentication or 2FA method confirms a user’s identity by utilizing a combination of two different elements, that is typically the account password and a confirmation code, which is sent to you via text message or email.

To be honest, anybody who is not taking advantage of this feature is surely asking for trouble. It is worth the extra hassle to keep social media safe. 

5. Move passwords to a management program.

A program known as LastPass remembers all of your accounts passwords, that forces you to only remember the master password. With so many difficulties to remember different passwords, several times might you have to end up resetting your password. This method gives you yet another impossible-to-remember password to add to the mix. You can also sync the service that is across all of your browsers and devices.

6. Do Not Click on Unknown or Shortened Links

Lastly, one of the biggest threats to our social media accounts today involves phishing attacks. Sometimes, these might also appear as a spear-phishing attack, which is designed to target a single person with a convincing email. You should not click on any unknown or shortened links. These links or mails could be designed to steal information. Moreover, even for links that might look familiar, hover over the URL of the website and ensure the actual link matches the text on the screen. This can prevent hackers and scammers from accessing social media accounts.

So these are a few of the key steps that everyone can take to protect social media accounts from hackers. By taking the steps mentioned ahead of time, it is possible to prevent these account attacks from taking place. Everyone has to ensure that they protect their online activity and identity from being stolen.