How To Keep Your Business’s Social Media Accounts From Getting Hacked
As much as business owners would love to believe that everybody in the world operates with the same strong set of morals, this is unfortunately not the case. There are a lot of scammers and hackers out there to break into your business’s social media accounts. In some cases, they can coerce the manager of the account into paying a ransom to regain control of it. The hacker utilizes the ability to post, message, and interact with others as the business to scam your followers into paying them money for any number of services they will not receive. This can be highly problematic for your business. Unfortunately, if you fall victim to a hacker, there is no guarantee you will get your account back. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to avoid your account being taken over.
Create and Safely Secure A Strong Password
Most online platforms that require a strong password use algorithms to define what a strong password is. When creating your password refrain from using a piece of personal info such as name, date of birth, or street name. Even if the system says it is a strong password, it may not be good enough. If your password is easy to remember then it is easy to be guessed. Use a long combination of letters and numbers to make it harder to have your password unlocked by a hacker. One option is to use a password manager tool such as LastPass. A password manager tool will randomly generate a string of characters to be your password and then stows it away. Not only do you need a strong password but it is also good practice to change your password often. Additionally, keep your passwords different from account to account and change them often.
Use Two-Factor Authentication
A strong and safely secured password is going to be your best bet in terms of keeping away e-criminals, but by no means is it your only defense mechanism. You can set your social media accounts up so that your password isn’t only one step in the process of someone else gaining access to them. This process is called two-factor authentication which usually works by generating a six-digit code and sending it to an electronic device that you control through a text message or through an authentication app such as Duo Mobile or Google Authenticator.
The bad news is that two-factor authentication can be a small inconvenience for you, oftentimes tacking on an additional 20-30 seconds of work for you to access your accounts. The good news is that two-factor authentication is exponentially more troublesome of a step for the bad guys, as they won’t have the device on which you set up to receive two-factor authentication.
Beware Of Phishing
The way to avoid trouble via a phishing link is to not click on it if you are not 100% certain where it is leading you. Beware of when you may be getting “phished” through a fraudulent link. Phishing can occur in many ways, but one way is when a hacker sends you a link via email. This can happen if you receive an email from a social media account, such as Twitter, claiming that you have been locked out of your account and need to verify your information to be able to log back in. Attached to the email is a link that leads you to a fake Twitter login page where you put your information and now you have handed the hackers your account information.
In some cases just clicking on the link can lead to problems. Before you click on the link, there are a couple of things you should do. First, look at the email instead of who it says it is from. Hovering over the “from” name will show you where it truly came from. Second hover over the link without clicking on it to see its true destination.
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