Why do people hack Social Media accounts?

It’s been a month since I help the husband of my friend recover his Facebook Account from a hacker but we unsuccessfully claimed it. I know few tips to recover the access but my knowledge in tech when I am about to scale it’s just 4/10 compare to the hacker itself. So, I was wondering why do hackers need to hack other peoples social media accounts in a way that there’s nothing any real value in there. Right?

Think again, why do you think they hack your account? When all you have there are just your fancy holiday photos, your latest purchase being show off and even just a simple recommendation you post to that restaurant you’ve just take out your food online are such a goldmine to others if it ends up in the wrong hands.

Hackers, keylogger, black hat, and etc. name it there are people like that who are more interested on getting those information from you, as we all get comfortable with sharing things especially to the different aspects of our lives online. So, I guess we need to tighten up our grip around especially to our personal details.

With that, there are lots of things I learned when I was helping a friend recovering his account. So, posting this in my hope that you will avoid conflicts like this in the future.

How to be cautious online to avoid your social media accounts being hack

1. Keep personal information limited

Keeping your information away from hackers that could use to get your bank information, safe. Such as your birthday, your mother’s maiden name, city you were born in, and even your first pets name or those common phrases used by financial companies must not be put on social media.

2. Choose strong passwords

When it comes to passwords as much as possible please do choose something more logic but at the same time easy to remember one. In fact, never ever use the same password in all of your social media accounts.

Tips when creating a strong password

Password atleast 12 characters long
Has an UPPERCASE LETTER (A-Z)
Has a lowercase letters (a-z)
Has a numbers (1234567890);
and a symbols ( ! , @ , # , ? )

3. Avoid suspicious links

Phishing is very common in the internet especially in emails and social media. As that method for cyber criminals to send out messages containing attachments or hyperlinks that contains malware or any links that the website masquerading as something legit as their goal is to trick the recipient clicking the website or downloading the attachment that could expose your account information, or worst asking for credentials such as your bank accounts, emails and passwords. Please don’t give it to them.

4. Set your profiles to private

Think carefully in a way that what we share online isn’t private anymore. With that, setting your account to private such as posting to be viewed by friends only could help you avoid your account being hack.

5. Use a secure public Wi-Fi (as much as possible don’t use)

As much as possible don’t use public Wi-Fi. If you cannot resist to use one, avoid logging into your accounts online on apps or entering in any personal data or financial information. As hackers are known to set up fake Wi-Fi hotspots to lure unsuspecting web browsers. If you do log to someones fake Wi-Fi, hackers can basically see everything you do online. Scary, right?

6. Be careful what you post

Internet is a very public more than you know. While this has yet to be seen, it is very important to know that everything you post, like, share, comment on, and even promoting online can easily be made available to the public. How? Everything is searchable. You type it, it shows up. That’s how internet nowadays, worst is content has a longer shelf-life that us. Just what they sayin’ think before you click.

7. Shop online in a secure sites

We do had much reasons to shop online. Who else don’t have? Most of the bargains were there, wide selection of the things you truly want, low cost of shipping, easy to returns and most of all were in the age of COVID-19. Even if we are all fully vaccinated, fully masked and gloved still it’s safer to buy things online than visiting the store physically. Right?

For us not to be a the next victim of those cyber criminals we need to stay away from sits that aren’t secure. Always remember when browsing that you need to find that lock on your web browser before entering your bank information to avoid scams or worst they may end up using your bank account out of nowhere. Sites that doesn’t have SSL (secure sockets layer) are meant to be avoided when buying anything online. You’ll know if the site has SSL when you see that the URL (universal resource locator) starts with HTTPS instead of HTTP.

8. Configure your profile privacy settings

Knowing things in order on your profile privacy settings especially in your social media accounts is a must as those are one of the necessary things you have a full control with such as your audiences, limiting past post and even basic information you want to limit to the people who can see it. You may check your profile privacy settings by clicking the link of social media accounts you have from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Tiktok, and Tumblr. Let me know in the comments if I missed any social media accounts you have to help you configure your privacy settings in it.

9. Block anyone who bothers you

We all know that social media sites allow us to block people whom we do not want to have access in our accounts and blocking them off away from our accounts could help you save yourself knowing the option of muting them around. It may not be permanent but one thing I love is that they won’t be notified and could not longer see your post. 🙂

10. Keep your antivirus and operating system up-to-date

This way could help you and your computer away from viruses and other forms of malware as well as cyber criminals in a way they are very common in the internet. By keeping that two updated it can make sure your computers and other devices be secure as much as possible.

My Takeaway

Social media shouldn’t be a scary space for all of us but being secure as much as possible is the only way we can control with as the internet becomes more vulnerable to those people who doesn’t give extra care to their information. It can be big or small but always remember, information are still information.

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LETS BE FRIENDS!

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