One of the most common questions I receive is regarding account security on social media. Cyber security has been on my mind a lot and if you are in the Resource Room group on Facebook, you know why.
Hackers are getting more and more creative so it’s important to set up necessary security, stay alert, and exercise caution on all of your accounts.
What’s the difference between a spammer and a hacker?
Spammers are essentially clowns. They want attention and they will annoy you to get it, but they don’t actually steal anything from you. Yes, they might get you to click on a link that can lead to being hacked, but most of the time those links are to drive traffic to their spammy website.
A hacker is a thief. They want to steal and destroy and they do so by getting unauthorized access to an account/computer/system/network.
What can you do today to protect yourself and your customers?
1- Set up two factor authentication on all of your accounts.
2- Check if your emails/passwords have been compromised in a hack at https://haveibeenpwned.com/
3- Set up firewalls on your websites, if you have one.
4- Use strong, unpredictable passwords and change them every so often.
5- Use the “log out of all devices” option on your social media pages every so often to ensure you didn’t accidentally stay logged in somewhere and if someone has access and they shouldn’t, they will also be logged out.
What hacks should you be aware of right now?
There’s a couple new hacks that have come up recently and look so real. While these are examples from Instagram, they could come up on any platform.
You get a message from a friend on your list (that you recently talked with). They’re asking you to screenshot and send them back a link to count as a “vote” they’ll text you. They’re actually already hacked and the hacker is triggering YOUR two factor authentication. So the text you get is YOUR password reset. If you send it to them, you’ve handed them the key.
This is similar to the example above, but just a different tactic to try to get you to click a link that gives access to YOUR account, not theirs (contrary to what they will try to convince you).
At the end of the day, it’s just sad that people spend their time hurting others in this way. Rather than sitting back and thinking it could never happen to you, please take precautions NOW so you aren’t trying to bail yourself out of a bad situation later.
As always, I’m here to help if you have questions and need more support.