If you’ve lost control of your account, look no further! We’re here to detail every step you need to take in order to regain access to your account and prevent another social media hack from happening again in the future. Only you can make sure your data is secure!
While a small scale social media hack can include embarrassing social media posts, there has also been a huge increase in large-scale attacks which can lead to detrimental data loss and even identity theft!
If your social media account gets hacked, simply changing your password isn’t going to save you. Do you know the other steps you need to take to make sure the hacker hasn’t prepped your account for successive attacks? Here’s everything you need to know to keep hackers out indefinitely!
What Are the Risks of a Social Media Hack?
Let’s say you get some messages from your friends saying that you’ve been sending a few sketchy messages. It’s likely that your computer isn’t just on the fritz, although that’s what we’d all like to believe. When you’re the victim of a social media hack, you have to consider the fact that this person has full access to your account.
Even if just one site gets hacked, your other accounts could be hacked as well.
Hackers don’t just gain access to your username and password. If you use that same password on other sites, they’re likely going to gain access to each of your other accounts as well. If you’re Facebook is linked to your Instagram, for example, that’s two accounts easily hacked! Similarly, if your Twitter is linked to your Instagram, then voilà! Full account access.
Let’s consider what information they may be able to gain from those accounts. Likely, your date of birth is on your Facebook, your personal emails are locked into these pages, your phone number is probably visible to the hacker, they can send messages to everyone in your contacts, etc. Keep in mind, this isn’t just embarrassing, but your contacts might even actually end up sending them money…
It’s more than just your passwords that are at risk.
It’s not hard to imagine how this trend continues to accumulate, letting an attacker even carry out identity theft using your personal details. All of this can affect not just your reputation online (especially if you’re a business!) but also your finances.
How Do I Know if My Account Has Been Hacked?
Not everyone gets a direct message from their email or social media site stating that their account has been compromised. Therefore, you may not immediately know that anything is wrong with your account, especially if the attacker only makes small changes or sends periodic messages. Some common signs that you’ve been the victim of a social media hack are:
- If there are ANY updates on your account that you didn’t post yourself
- If anyone tells you that they’ve received messages from your account that you didn’t send (occasionally check your sent messages)
- New games or apps associated with your account (these can include purchases)
- If you get a notification stating that you’ve made changes to your account
- Any other actions on your account such as friending, following/unfollowing, blocking, etc.
How Did My Account Get Hacked?
It’s important to understand exactly how a social media hack took place in order to prevent further attacks in the future. Here are the most common ways hackers access your account:
- Malware on your device
- The site itself being hacked
- Your security software is out of date
- You clicked a harmful link in an email, direct message or on a webpage
- Weak or commonly used passwords
- A third-party app that you’ve authorized being breached
Check out how easy it is to hack into a company.
Video: Watch This Hacker Break Into a Company
What to Do If Your Account Was Hacked
If you do discover a social media hack, there are a few steps you should take, immediately:
- Check Your Computer for Malware: Most hackers collect passwords using malware. Run a full virus scan on your computer to remove harmful files and programs. Restart your computer and run the scan one more time to be safe. Changing your passwords without cleaning your system might not lock hackers out of your accounts.
- Reset Your Password: If you use the compromised password on any other site, change it there as well. You should also make your password stronger than you had it before. This should be 10 characters long and use capital letters, lower case letters, numbers, and symbols.
- Enable 2-Step Verification (2SV): 2-Step Verification adds an extra layer of security to your account. By requiring a special code sent to your phone when your account settings are changed, you can make sure you’re always aware if someone is trying to get into your account.
- Revoke Permissions from Third-Party Apps: Go through your authorized third-party apps and remove any that you don’t need. Many of us carelessly click “authorize” without realizing how much information you’re letting them access. If that app is breached, you’re a target.
- Check That Your System Is up to Date: In fact, set your computer to automatically update automatically so that you get protection from new attacks as soon as possible.
- Notify Friends and Family: Although most people will realize that it probably wasn’t you sending invitations to buy a miracle weight loss cure, it’s worth double-checking they got the memo. Let your friends and family know you’ve been hacked, especially in case they received any money requests. This is especially true if the hack was the result of malware or malicious links.
- Check Your Email Settings: Check your mail settings as hackers can change your settings to forward a copy of your emails. You should also review your signature to make sure they haven’t left any hidden codes or traces. Also, don’t forget to check for an activated auto-responder aimed to turn your email into a spam machine.
- Report Any Spam or Scams: Be sure to report the breach so that the site can stop the attack from spreading.
- Contact Support: If you’re unable to access your account you’ll need to contact support to regain control.
Phishing, Scams, and Memory
If your account was hacked, it was likely due to spam phishing and scams. It’s worth taking a moment to refresh your memory on what these malicious links often look like and how to avoid them in the future.
It’s fair to say that anything online that sounds too good to be true, probably is. Although it would be nice to have some long lost distant family members who’d like to wire you millions of dollars and all you have to do is send them your account details – we’re pretty positive they’re just trying to get access to your financial information. Oh, and more importantly, use secure networks and protect yourself using a VPN.
Browse Privately with SaferVPN
With SaferVPN, your data is always encrypted using bank-level 256 AES encryption. Help prevent a social media hack by making sure your personal data is never exposed online.
If you don’t have SaferVPN yet, get a subscription today (we offer a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee, you’ve got nothing to lose!) or try SaferVPN for free so you can enjoy peace of mind online.
Have any feedback, suggestions or feature requests? Feel free to contact us, ask questions in the comments, and join us on social media! We’d love to hear from you.
فیلترشکن پرسرعت
