Protecting Your Social Media Accounts From Being Hacked
Ever since the invention of the internet, we have enjoyed the bounties of the age of information. The World Wide Web’s unique ability to grant access to information to everyone across the globe is certainly no easy feat to achieve, and this has revolutionized our society. But where the internet has been used to further the advancement in science, technology, and other fields, it has also been used to carry out illegal activities. Fortunately/Unfortunately, the internet was created to grant access to everyone around the world, NOT restricting their access, and this fact lets the hackers of the world waddle about, seeking target after targets, to hack, and exploit. But there is no need to lay down your arms and give in to this threat, there are precautionary steps you can take to prevent your sensitive information on the web, especially your social media accounts.
1. Beware of Phishing:
Phishing is one of the most common tactics in the “Hacker tricks of the trade”, and the reason it has been so common and famous over the years, is because it is very effective. Imagine yourself, trying to log in to your Facebook account, and typing the URL of the website in your address bar. But instead of typing www.facebook.com, you accidentally type, www.facebok.com, and hit enter. Your browser opens up a webpage, which is exactly the same in appearance and looks, as the homepage of Facebook, but it isn’t exactly their webpage. And since you are only there to enjoy the bounties of social media, instead of double-checking the security levels of the page, you happily write your login credentials in the fake sign in box, and give your sensitive information to the hackers almost willingly.
2. Watch what you download:
Casual social media users don’t really give two thoughts about what they download off the web, and this is a pretty serious threat. Knowingly/unknowingly, you can download third-party applications off the internet that secretly install malware and spyware into your system granting remote access of your system, to the hackers. Of course, there are other applications and programs that claim to hack social media accounts effectively, like BluePortal, but they can only harm your presence on the web, if you give them the chance to do so.
3. Use strong BUT easy to remember passwords:
Most of the people don’t really give a lot of thought to the password they select for their social media accounts. They just pick something that they can associate with themselves easily, something which is easy to remember, and something, which they can never forget. Although, it is somewhat the right way to go, setting a password that you might remember, but it is also important to make it unique and something that nobody would be able to crack. One more thing, make sure you use different passwords for different websites, because using the same password for all the websites you visit can bring you to your knees if a hacker gets hold of even ONE of your password.
4. Watch where you click:
Hackers are definitely trying to improve the way they do their thing, and to do so, they are developing tricks that would make them seem almost unrecognizable, but effective. One such technique, is using the concept of clickbait to lure you in. So watch out for what you click on while going through your social media feed. Sometimes you might come across some headline that is too good to be true, and being the unsuspecting, good-natured people we are, we end up clicking on them, not knowing the fact that we just gave access to some hacker.
5. Log-in notifications:
It is always a good idea to enable log-in notifications, this way, whenever you or someone tries to log into your social media account, you get a text on your phone, informing you of the activity. If you logged in to your account, you have nothing to be worried about, but it can potentially help you if someone else tries to access your social media account.
