3 Easy Ways To Protect Your Cybersecurity On Social Media


If there’s anything the last couple of years has taught us, it’s that cybersecurity threats are only going to get more common as we move into the future. That means that all of your online activity leaves you potentially vulnerable to an attack, especially on social media.

Here’s what you need to know to help keep yourself, and your business, safe on social media.

 

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Don’t Get Too Personal On Social Media

The first thing most people need to know is that giving out a lot of personal information on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok is never a good idea. You really don’t know who is going to have access to that information, or how much information is being collected about you silently.

For instance, a lot of personality quizzes or choosing words based on your birthday, clothing choice, or favorite food, are actually ways of mining data about users. They might be a fun and entertaining way to gather data, but the goal is still to learn more about you.
It’s easy to reverse engineer those quizzes and figure out people’s answers, including personal information that can be used to create realistic accounts, get past security questions, and other means of hacking.

Now, everyone does a quiz or two in their downtime. Rather than trying to eliminate them entirely, think about what kind of data you’re giving away, and decide how public you want to be about quiz results.
It’s also important to know that sometimes you give companies permission to mine your account for data just by using a quiz. If a quiz takes you to another tab or even just a new screen on the same tab, they’re probably also asking permission to access your public records on social media.

Use Unique Passwords And A Password Management Tool

In addition to being cautious with your social media use, it’s important to protect your passwords from more traditional hacking attempts. The easiest way to protect your passwords is to use a reliable password management tool to create and store 100% unique passwords for each site.

Make sure you set up double-authentication and account recovery systems when you use a password management tool. That way you won’t have to worry about losing access to your account and password information just because you forgot the password for the tool.

If you’re a business owner, it’s also a good idea to ask employees to use a password management system when they’re online. Employee accounts are often the easiest means of entry for hackers and cybercriminals.

Block Spammers And Suspicious Activity

This last step is an easy one, but also one of the least common cyber security steps for people to take. Instead of just ignoring the sources of spam messages and activity, you should block them.
There are a few reasons for this. One of the simplest is volume. The more spam messages you receive the more likely it is you’ll click on one, even accidentally. The fewer spam messages you receive, the easier it is to stay safe.

Blocking spam messages is also an important way to get spam accounts detected by social media platforms and removed. If an account is getting blocked and reported by an unusual number of users the platform has an incentive to make sure that account gets taken down. For more details, contact Economic Computers today!