Social Media

Social media create a very open area for communication without boundaries so there are no limits for potential advantages which such platforms can offer You. This is why so many users have their accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Google+.

Most of these people use these platforms for communication and real interactions with friends, family or any other people they actually know or don’t know.
Most of them have several accounts in each social network and use them quite regularly. Using them, they connect with other users and share personal information such as movies and photos, own or of friends and family. Most often, they publish what they think and other things which are worth some attention in their opinion.
Obviously, along with the increase of the importance of social media and their value in everyday life, there are also serious incidents caused by hackers. This means that attacks on social accounts are not rare and no phenomenon at all.
We observe a completely opposite situation. Many people have to confront a very negative side of social media. This is a very fast and relatively simple way of operations of hackers and other intruders operations that penetrate systems of other people.
What’s more, when attacking one account, it is possible to infect many other users related with that account. So, let us start with few symptoms indicating that our account may be infected.
Symptoms of an attacked social account
Although stating that an account was attacked is very difficult, there are several issues that should make you pay special attention and look at this subject more attentively. Most of symptoms are as below:
• You observe that there are many likes and shares from people you have nothing in common with.
• Your status is updated despite you are not using the portal.
• Your wall contains a lot of ads and they are mainly
very complex.
• You have problems in logging in.
• It appears that the majority of posts are published on your behalf.
• Someone sends private messages from your account.
• You have new friends although you don’t remember adding them.
• Others inform that you share harmful content.
If you notice some of the above symptoms, you need to check this instead of ignoring it.  If such situation occurs, it is very probable that you account is infected and you have to act really fast and efficiently.
How are accounts attacked  
In order to know how to keep your social media accounts safe, you must learn where the threat comes from.  Attacking a social account is easier than you could imagine. There are numerous sophisticated techniques which are a risk for all Internet users, just waiting to enter your system and to get an access essential data. There are certain main methods of attacking an account which are used by hackers.
• Breaking the password.
• Phishing.
• Installation of malware
• Other infected sites.
• Additional applications or services of other companies.
As you see, there are many ways that can lead intruders to the desired effect but it is also the time when there appear more threats which are extremely sophisticated and more advanced than few years ago. So, our defence strategy should also be strong enough. Below, we present what we can do if our social media account is attacked.  We form defence lines and react to the threat  Don’t panic even if there already was a break-in to your social media account. There are few simple steps you can take to eliminate the risk and increase the safety of your account. In most of cases, it is enough to follow the below guidelines to reduce further losses. Devoting some time can allow you recover your account and be sure that no one is threatening its integrity.
1. It is essential to immediately change the password to a stronger one, which was not previously used. Using the same password for all services and sites can have disastrous results.
2. Remove all applications which are active in your social media account, which you do not know anything about. If you did not install any applications, there should be no app in the list.
3. Consider using a separate email address just for social media. Thanks to this, you will know what is happening in the account and your basic address will be safe from infections.
4. Make sure that your antivirus software is updated and plan a complex scanning. If you use social media on several devices, scan all of them.
5. Absolutely report all spam as this allows detection of malware and many other threats. It may turn out that if your friends click links full of spam, their accounts will also be infected and you should not let a formation of a vicious circle of threats.
6. Think twice before clicking  anything. New types of malware  can proliferate using links  and you should be  alert and eliminate threats immediately.
7. Use only safe and proven platforms for social advertising. If it is possible, buy ads directly from Facebook or companies which already have their own platforms and do not buy services of this type from agents.
8. This is the last but very important tip. Make sure that your information you publish online is really safe. Do no provide too much information which can be related with your account as well as details from your personal life.
Ways of avoiding break-ins to social media accounts
Above, we described what to do if your account is already attacked. What is equally important is knowledge how to avoid repeating the same mistakes. You should create multi-layer protection and prevent others from breaking through them. There are certain basic guidelines, power and efficiency of which are really high and allow you protect your account from malware and other threats.
Most of all, you should be very cautious when selecting the password. Use a password which is difficult to be guessed and is not related with you. Additionally, if you use social media on other devices, don’t risk that your password could be used when you stop using such devices. Always log out and clear the password list when you finish working on other computers.  Do not share your password with anyone, even with your best friends or partners. Your password is your private matter and you should never ignore risks which can occur when someone knows your private information.
What is more, you should use the two-step authentication. This is always an additional weapon to protect your private data. The two-step verification may allow avoiding many threats and most of social media offer this option. This can assure you that you will recover your account fast if someone violates its integrity and you can defend your social media account. Double verification is a great weapon to fight with intruders, which can be introduced very fast.
Conclusion  
Safety in social media may be difficult to be achieved but if you focus on what you do and some really simple guidelines, you will be able to recover you accounts immediately and without any frustrations.  Of course, you should use all these guidelines before a loss or a violation of your account as it is better to prevent than cure. We recommend protection of your account before a threat occurs. Such policy will allow you to keep all threats away from your social media accounts and to protect from bad intentions of other users. Please remember that social media are really helpful provided you know how to use them and what security measures should be introduced to protect your accounts at social media.

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