Learn how to protect yourself from scams and scammers
Protecting your social media accounts
Your social media accounts are yours and yours only to see and utilize. Scammers will try to find numerous ways to hack into your accounts, with the intent of stealing your personal details, or potentially bribing you to get your account back! Check out these simple tips to ensure the best protection for your personal data.
Strong passwords
What makes a password strong?
A strong password should be long and complex. It should include small letters, capital letters, numbers, and symbols. Avoid using easily guessable words such as your name, surname, birthdate, or common words such as “pass” and “passcode”.
To enhance a stronger level of security, use different passwords for each social media account. Remember that if a scammer manages to hack into one of your accounts, having a different password will prevent them from easily hacking into your other accounts.
Two-factor authentication
The two-factor authentication is an additional layer of security besides the actual password. This is usually a fingerprint scan, facial recognition, or a unique one-time code generated through a separate device or application. This helps verifying if the person trying to log in is indeed the official user.
Both Facebook and Instagram allow you to add a two-factor authentication. Hence, if there are attempts for unauthorized logins, this additional layer will be a key blocker for the scammer.
Be cautious
When you receive a social media message, an SMS, or an email, think! Scammers create fake accounts, sometimes in the name of someone you already know, to be able to communicate easily with you through Instagram messages. They might also send you an Instagram message through an account they already hacked.
You might receive fraudulent links even through social media itself. When you notice something that is fake and potentially a scammer, do not open anything, and report to the official social media platform for them to investigate.
Monitor regularly
Your account is your own digital space. Make sure it remains yours and yours only!
Monitoring your account regularly is one good step to identify suspicious activity, unauthorized access, unusual messages, patterns in fake pages following your content, and well … scammers!
On both Instagram and Facebook, you can monitor your login activity by checking the platforms security settings.
Strong passwords
What makes a password strong?
A strong password should be long and complex. It should include small letters, capital letters, numbers, and symbols. Avoid using easily guessable words such as your name, surname, birthdate, or common words such as “pass” and “passcode”.
To enhance a stronger level of security, use different passwords for each social media account. Remember that if a scammer manages to hack into one of your accounts, having a different password will prevent them from easily hacking into your other accounts.
Two-factor authentication
The two-factor authentication is an additional layer of security besides the actual password. This is usually a fingerprint scan, facial recognition, or a unique one-time code generated through a separate device or application. This helps verifying if the person trying to log in is indeed the official user.
Both Facebook and Instagram allow you to add a two-factor authentication. Hence, if there are attempts for unauthorized logins, this additional layer will be a key blocker for the scammer.
Be cautious
When you receive a social media message, an SMS, or an email, think! Scammers create fake accounts, sometimes in the name of someone you already know, to be able to communicate easily with you through Instagram messages. They might also send you an Instagram message through an account they already hacked.
You might receive fraudulent links even through social media itself. When you notice something that is fake and potentially a scammer, do not open anything, and report to the official social media platform for them to investigate.
Monitor regularly
Your account is your own digital space. Make sure it remains yours and yours only!
Monitoring your account regularly is one good step to identify suspicious activity, unauthorized access, unusual messages, patterns in fake pages following your content, and well … scammers!
On both Instagram and Facebook, you can monitor your login activity by checking the platforms security settings.