I woke up Tuesday morning to find a string of porn videos on my Facebook page. Someone on my friend’s list had been hacked and along with many other people, I had been tagged. It took me around 20 minutes to get untagged from each one, as I realized immediately it was a hack and did not want to get the “friend” blocked or kicked off for the content.
I woke up Tuesday morning to find a string of porn videos on my Facebook page. Someone on my friend’s list had been hacked and along with many other people, I had been tagged. It took me around 20 minutes to get untagged from each one, as I realized immediately it was a hack and did not want to get the “friend” blocked or kicked off for the content.
In my time line thread, I saw that others had been hacked and were sending mass messages to their friends assuring them that they had not tagged them in these videos, but I am amazed at how vulnerable our social networks are. Being that social media is a major part of my job and working in the Internet industry for several years prior, I have learned quite a few things about social media security. I have several practices that I use on a regular basis to help prevent this from happening to me. Although I know it is not foolproof, I know that taking certain actions help in preventing my social media accounts from hackers.
First of all is antivirus programs. I gladly pay the $80 a year for Internet security and buy the bundle that protects up to three devices. This way my computer at home, my phone and my tablet are highly protected. Internet security that is free or comes with your device is not enough to protect your accounts. That is why they are free. They might give you some protection, but it is limited.
Things I never do. Other than my computer at home, I never log into my bank account on my phone. It is just too risky to take the chance. I have a string of passwords that I easily remember but have no association with my family, my job, or me and I change passwords frequently. This, I also do in the security of my home or work computer. Never in public on my phone or tablet. As a matter of fact, I never log into any account from my phone or tablet unless I am within my home wireless Internet. Again, it is too risky, especially when hackers are always one step ahead of the game. I gladly pay an extra $20 a month on my phone bill to have my own personal hotspot Internet that I can carry anywhere I go. It is convenient and this way I never have to log on to free wireless wherever I am at. I truly believe this is where many people get hacked. Free Internet is dangerous Internet and cannot be trusted. So if for some reason I get logged out, I wait until I am under my antivirus security blanket to log back in.
In all honesty, a little porn on my timeline is just inconvenient, especially if I am not the one it is coming from, because getting hacked can have much larger repercussions than a few videos posted or e-mails sent.
These days we carry our most personal information with us wherever we go. Steps have to be taken in order to keep that information safe and sound and so far, my system is working for me. The last time I got hacked was at least five years ago, and that was because I was using free Internet at a college. It was my twitter account, and I suddenly received a bunch of messages from good friends that told me what they were receiving from my account.
Be a good friend on social media. When you receive spam in your e-mail from someone you know, let them know immediately so they can at least go in and reset their password. It is called Internet etiquette. You would want someone to do the same for you. And take as much precautions that you can to protect your social media. These few things will help, but it really boils down to common sense and learning what will protect you and what will not. Bottom line, it is our own responsibility to do whatever it takes to keep our devices safe. And though it is another expense that I dread paying every year, it is vital. And it might be inconvenient to wait to see what your bank balance is, or to automatically reload your Starbucks app, it is really not worth the risk you take.
