How to protect your social media accounts from Hackers

This past few days online has been very strange because i witnessed two peoples account i know get hacked by hackers. One was the account of HR manager where i work and the other was the twitter account of one of my good friend. It is strange to me because i have never experienced any of this before with my account or from any body close to me. 

This is the reason i had to write this post today for the benefit of those who have been hacked and are trying to recover their account and also for those trying to prevent their account from being hacked.

Fire prof passwords
I personally have more than one password for my social media accounts and this will be the first time i am sharing this information about my password online. I do not say this alot because of security reasons. I often stress the importance of securing your online accounts with a strong password. This is no different. Using “password” or “1982”(your date of birth) as your password is practically the same as not using a password at all. Get into the habit of securing all of your online accounts with strong passwords, which include a combination of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers and symbols.

Beware of phishing scams
Phishing scams are one of the oldest tricks in book, yet many people still fall for them today. It’s no surprise that one theory to this incident is that the celebrities were duped into revealing their login credentials through a phishing scam. After all, many people will panic if they saw an email saying, “Unauthorized access has been detected. Please verify or your account will be locked.”

The best way to avoid a phishing scam is to avoid logging into accounts through links within emails, even if you know with full certainty that the email is legitimate. Instead, go to the official website directly and login from there to confirm the email claim.

Have Two Stage authentication for your account

While iCloud accounts previously did not have two-factor authentication, in light of this incident, Apple said it would strengthen its security measures by adding alerts to notify users when signs of a break-in have been detected, as well as make improvements to its two-factor authentication.

We highly recommend enabling this security feature for all of your online accounts, if applicable. It’s easy to setup, and you’ll have peace of mind knowing you have an additional layer of security protecting your online accounts from unauthorized eyes.

Never access sensitive websites over unsecured WiFi
The theory that the WiFi at the Emmy Awards was compromised by a hacker is a possible scenario. With selfies and Tweets guaranteed to happen, the likelihood of attendees using public WiFi to access the Internet is extremely high. Since public WiFi signals are unsecured (or rather unencrypted), the data transmitted could be sniffed out and intercepted. The approach to make sure your data is secured when on public WiFi is to use a VPN (virtual private network). Hotspot Shield, SurfEasy, and Private WiFi are just a few of the many VPN services available.

Don’t wait until it’s too late
Having your private photos stolen from your online accounts (and posted for the world to see) is upsetting and can potentially damage your reputation. But it isn’t just photos – hackers can gain access to your emails, your online banking accounts, and other very sensitive parts of your online life. Taking preemptive measures and being vigilant on the Web makes you a harder target against those who want to take advantage of you.

Watch out for the padlock Sign on every site

The internet can e a very risky place to be if you do not know what to what out for. when ever you get on a site and you need to enter your password or credit details kindly take a second or two to look out for the top left side of your address bar for a padlock sign that indicates that the site is a secure site. If you do not see that sign then you should stay away from the site or visit the site directly from another device and wifi.

Avoid clicking links in your Twitter inbox

This is the last tip for the day and i am sure a lot of us have experienced this before. When you suddenly get an inbox from someone you know asking you to click a link to get some sort of freebie. If you do (and in most cases you will because you got the inbox from someone you know and trust) but what you might not know is that the person account was hacked and if you click that link yours too will be hacked and they will use your account to send messages to your own close friends on twitter and the circle continues.