4 Easy Ways to Keep Your Social Media Secure

It’s, unfortunately, very common for social media accounts to get hacked or compromised. Yet, it’s extremely easy to set up security protocols to keep your accounts safe. All it takes is about five minutes to set up. Don’t risk your personal data!

Keeping Your Accounts Secure Isn’t Hard

Today’s world is digital, and your social media accounts keep you connected to family, friends, and the latest news. Do you know how vulnerable your data might be? Social media accounts are a main target for hackers. The best way to protect your accounts is to stay one step ahead by following the latest in cybersecurity protocol.

Take Passwords Seriously

When the internet was new, people only had to remember a short password to log in to their accounts. These days, passwords are required to be strong, meaning they need capital letters, numbers, special characters, and must meet a certain length. Many people use password hints or rotate their passwords around multiple logins—these are terrible ideas! Often, the answers to your password hints (for example, “What’s your pet’s name?”) can be easily researched via your public posts or those of your friends and family.

Instead of these ineffective tactics, it’s a good idea to use password generators (Google and LastPass both offer tools to make this easier) instead. Make sure not to use the same passwords across different logins because once a hacker has one working login, they will definitely try to use this information to access other accounts, such as your personal banking. Don’t make it easy for bad actors to access your data. And please don’t write your passwords on a Post-it note or in a notebook on your desk, especially in a public office or when using a shared computer.

For extra credit, go the extra mile and set yourself reminders to actively change your passwords every 3–6 months. When you do change your passwords, don’t just add another number or put an exclamation point at the end. Hackers are well aware of these common lazy password updates, and your accounts won’t be safe!

Password hints are dangerous to use because it’s far too easy for bad actors to find personal information about you and figure out the answers to those hints. Your birthdate, hometown, mother’s birth name, and other common ‘password hints’ are fairly easy to find in the information that’s shown in a public profile.

In fact, Generation Alpha is facing a potential identity theft crisis in the future, thanks to their parents publicly posting crucial details about them from the day that they’re born. When your friend posts about their new baby, they’re basically publicly sharing the child’s birthdate, full name, location, etc. When that child gets older, there’s a chance that the child’s identity could be in jeopardy because all of their life details have been publicly available on social media for years.

Take a Minute to Turn on 2FA

When it comes to keeping your account secure, 2FA (also known as multifactor authentication) is an easy way to ensure that you’re the only one who can access your account. It might be slightly annoying to get a code from a third-party app, but it’s a lot less annoying than dealing with your account getting hacked. I recommend using Google Authenticator because it saves your 2FA information to the cloud, so you won’t get locked out if you switch phones.

Each social platform will have different options when it comes to account security and privacy. You can see what options your app of choice has by navigating to your account settings. Most social platforms have many tools available to improve the security of your account. Meta provides a whole “Privacy Checkup” on Facebook and Instagram, which is worth checking out on a regular basis. Other social sites like Snapchat and LinkedIn also support 2FA. Take a look at your privacy and settings to see what options are available on your favorite social apps.

Monitor Your Account Activity

While you’re in your Security Settings to establish your 2FA, you’ll also want to take a look at the login activity for your account and end any sessions that you don’t recognize. In fact, if you do see sessions that you don’t recognize, you should definitely update your password while you’re at it! Check your login activity regularly to make sure nobody is lurking in your account. Keep in mind that if you use your account to log onto another website, it might show up as a session that you don’t recognize.

There might be a few extra steps, but keeping your accounts secure is important. Follow these best practices to help safeguard your social media profiles and make sure nobody has access to your personal information.