How to Prevent Hacking on Social Media

We’ve all seen it, “Don’t accept a friend request from my account, I’ve been hacked.” Social media accounts being hacked is becoming more and more common. If you’re an admin of a business account, this is going to put your business pages in jeopardy. 

First, let’s start with what prompted me to write this blog…

I follow quite a few small businesses on social media and recently I saw an Instagram post from a local company I follow. To summarize, the post said their Facebook page was hacked to the point where she couldn’t log into her Facebook account at all. The hackers changed all her contact information so there was no way for her to do a password reset or anything. She lost all access to messages which housed order information from some of her customers. She couldn’t access anything. Thankfully this story has a relatively happy ending. She was able to get in touch with Facebook and regained access to her account, but this did not go without hackers messing around with things while they were in there. 

This really got me thinking about our clients at Top Floor and how painful this would be if hackers got into their accounts. They could message customers, post anything they wanted, respond to messages and comments, and quickly misrepresent your business. Below are a few ways on how to prevent hacking on social media to save your business accounts.

Enable Multi-Factor Authentication:

In your privacy/security settings, turn on multi-factor authentication. Each time you log into your account, you can receive a text message with a 6-digit code. Entering this code will allow access to your account. Without this, you (or a hacker) would not be able to log in. Be sure this is enabled for ALL ADMINS on your accounts. 

If you receive a 6-digit code without attempting to log in yourself, we highly recommend updating your password. This could mean a hacker attempted to log into your account.

Stop using the same passwords:

We know, there’s no way you can remember a different password for every single account, so you keep them the same (or just slightly different). Unfortunately, this creates an all-too-easy way for hackers to slide right into your accounts. We recommend using a password manager like Lastpass to help you keep track of all those passwords!

Think Twice About Clicking Links:

As a business, you’ll receive all kinds of direct messages. If there’s a link, be sure it’s authentic before clicking it. By hovering over (not clicking) the link, you’ll be able to see the URL of where the link is going. If your gut tells you it’s suspicious, it’s probably right.

It’s too late, I’ve been hacked:

We’ve talked about how to prevent hacking on social media, but what if it’s too late. I really hope this is not why you’ve come to this blog, but if you need help, start at this link: 

https://www.facebook.com/hacked to hopefully get in touch with Facebook to recover your accounts.

The more actions to take to prevent your accounts from being hacked, the better off you’ll be. Hackers are becoming more advanced, but hopefully, we can make their hobby a bit more difficult. 

Oh, and if you need help with anything social media, we’ve got you! We don’t know how to hack accounts, but we do know how to run really good campaigns.

Until next time,

-Emily