Best Practices to Secure Your Social Media Account
Did you know that nearly 50% of the global population are users on one or more social media platforms? That’s 3.9 billion people who share life updates, interact with loved ones and friends, and upload a TON of personal information everyday. It’s no wonder that with this user database of private information, social media has become the perfect and more desirable platform for hackers and identity theft.
It is the responsibility of the user to keep their social media account and personal information safe.
Here are 4 ways to keep your account safe while still enjoying the benefits of social media.
Use a strong, unique password
While it might be simpler to use a short and easy-to-remember password, this poses some serious risk to your social media account. Passwords are the first line of defense when securing your account. You'll want to use passwords that are long, strong, and difficult for someone else to guess.
Pro Tip: Never use personal information like your birthday, middle name, street address etc, and don’t use the same password for multiple platforms!
Change your password frequently
It’s recommended that you change your password every three months. This ensures that if one of your passwords does get compromised, the time that a hacker remains inside the account is relatively short.
Use Two-Factor Authentication
Using Two-factor authentication adds an additional layer of security by making it harder for hackers to gain access to your social media accounts. Typically, two factor authentication is in the fashion of a code generated by or sent to your mobile device.
Limit who has access to your social accounts
This one is specific to business accounts, but also applicable to personal social media accounts as well. You don’t want too many people having access to your social accounts; it can cause confusion as to who is posting what and and accessing the accounts on what device. The less number of people who have access to the account means the lower the risk of your social account getting hacked through emails, cell phones and/or computers!
Avoid using public wifi networks
This one is easier said than done! I think that we have all experienced a dodgy public network (i.e the airport, Starbucks, etc). Any device connected to Wi-Fi could be at risk, but there are millions of people who connect to public networks on a daily basis. A hacker could hijack your session and gain access to all of your social accounts. Be sure to always connect to a private and secure network.
These are a few critical measures you can take to secure your social media accounts. By being proactive and following these tips, it definitely will lower the risk of your social media account getting hacked.