HOW TO SECURE YOUR INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT AGAINST HACKERS

HOW TO KEEP YOUR INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT SAFE

Being hacked on Instagram platform can be frustrating if you depend so much on the social media App. Some Instagram accounts that already have thousands of followers and lots of audience like those use in selling of services and products can be very costly to loose in the hands of hackers. The cost of building such number of followers is not cheap. The time it took and the number of posts made on the account are not things the owner would just ignore. Therefore, there is need to secure your Instagram account as the audience grows.

If you are wondering how you can do that, this post will give you details of all you need to do in that regard. Though you may not do everything stated here but you can do at least half of it to secure your Instagram account. Here are what you should do to keep your Instagram account safe:

 

BE CAREFUL OF WEBSITES WITH EMBEDDED INSTAGRAM POSTS

A hacker can embed phished Instagram post that will prompt you to login into your Instagram page before you could view the post. This is common with video posts, once you login on the fake login page shown, your Instagram account details will be stolen and use to login to your real Instagram account. This is hacking using phishing method.

 

KEEP YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT SAFE

Your email account is the backbone of your Instagram account, if any hacker gain access to your email account then hacking your Instagram account becomes easy. The bad aspect of this security bridge is that the hacker could also access other social media accounts you own through the email address. This is reason you must secure your email account properly if you want your Instagram account to be safe as well as other accounts linked to the email address. You can safeguard your email account by activating two-factor authentication for every login into your email account.

 

REVOKE THIRD-PARTY APP ACCESS

If you suspect that your account has been comprised especially after give access to a third-party app, you can safeguard your account by reversing the access permission granted to the app. To do that just navigate to the third-party apps sections on your Instagram account and click on the actual third-party app and deactivate or remove the access permission given to the third-party app.

 

KEEP YOUR DETAILS PRIVATE

There is an option on your Instagram account that enables you to keep your account private. This setting will shade our vital information from strangers and will ensure your activities are not exposed to unknown people. You can turn your account to private mode by navigating to the ‘account’ section, you will see list of options ‘Edit Profile’, ‘Change Password’, ‘Posts You’ve Liked’, & ‘Private Account’. Click on the button at the right end of the Private Account option to put your account in private mode.

 

ALWAYS LOG OUT

If you usually access your Instagram account with different devices, you can safeguard your account by login out each time you access the account and never check the ‘Remember me’ button on the login form. Doing this will help your account not to be accessible to a stranger who might use the same device later and change your details.

 

CHECK LOGIN ACTIVITY

Another easy way of safeguarding your Instagram account is to check your login activity always. You can get the details of your login activity in your Instagram account. The records of all your activity in the account will shown and if anyone else is accessing the account you will see it as well. This is very important if you suspect any security bridge in your Instagram account.

 

CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD OFTEN

Password is very important and keeping a particular password for a long time is not safe for your account. It is a good practice to change your Instagram account password once in a while. This makes it difficult for anyone who had phished your password or gaining access to your account to stop.

 

AVOID FACEBOOK LOGIN OPTION

It appears less stressful when we link our Instagram account to Facebook. This allows us to login to Instagram account through the Facebook account option below the Instagram account login form. However, this practice has a disadvantage of making any hacker that have your Facebook password to access your Instagram account.

 

USE STRONG PASSWORD

Another way you can increase the security level of your instagram account is to use very strong passwords. Strong passwords usually contain numbers, capital and small letters and usually a minimum of eight characters. This type of password will be hard to crack using any password cracking software and will not be easy for a hacker to remember completely even if you mistakenly type your password when someone was watching you.

 

AVOID STRANGER’S LINKS

Social media can be interesting when navigating on your news feed and viewing lots of interesting stories and pictures of others. Sometimes you can across posts with link that you do not know the source of the post, probably from someone you do not know but indirectly the post got into your news feed. To secure your Instagram account avoid clicking on such link.

 

SETUP TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION

Two-factor authentication is a login system that prompts you to request for a code that will be sent to either your email address or your telephone number. The code will be requested from you on the login page before you can login into your instagram account. The good aspect of this security measure is that if someone mistakenly stole your Instagram account password without hacking your email address as well or being in custody of your mobile telephone, such hacker would not be able to access the Instagram account despite having the password, because the hacker cannot be able to provide the requested codes sent to your telephone number or your email address. Almost all the social media platforms currently have two-factor authentication option available to its users. Even websites that have important activities in it also provide the option of its users activating the two-factor authentication.

 

APPLY VPN

VPN services enables you to surf the internet in a private mode. This kind of service will make your current location unknown and will hide other information about your Instagram account. It is a security measure that can confuse any hacker targeting your Instagram account. Without proper details of your Instagram account such as the type of device you usually use to access the Instagram account and the location, a hacker may not be properly equipped to know the right software to use in targeting your account thereby keeping your Instagram account far from hackers.

 

DO NOT USE PASSWORD USED IN OTHER ACCOUNTS

It is always convenient to use the same password in multiple websites accounts. It saves the stress of cracking your memory to remember the password used in a particular account. However, this practice is not encourageable for security reasons despite the fact that we all are guilty of this behavior. If you want to improve the security of your Instagram account, you must make sure that use new password that has not been used in any other website. That is very important and will help to make you untraceable by any hacker accessing your browser saved passwords and login details.

 

BLOCK SUSPICIOUS FOLLOWERS

Some hacking technics could involve following the target to gain access to some information about the target before launching any attack. It is natural to see someone you don’t know following you on Instagram but when you suspect any account that just started following you can block the account to safeguard your own Instagram account.

 

VIEW DETAILS OF ANY ACCOUNT YOU WANT TO FOLLOW

This option is not compulsory but can go a long way in safeguarding your Instagram account. All you need is to view the account details of anyone you want to follow on Instagram. The details will show you when the person joined Instagram, the kind of posts on the account, and lots more. When this becomes a habit, it shades your Instagram account away from hackers because you are following only the real people you trust.

 

DO NOT OPEN ATTACHMENTS

Some virus can be attached as a file and sent to your Instagram as a message. Even attachment in a post could be the same. If you do not want to mistakenly download virus into your phone or browsing device, you should not open any attachment sent to your Instagram account by someone you don’t know. Hackers find it easier to send virus attachment to innocent user as text message and claim the file is a winner or free offers documents and would prompt you to open it. Do not do that except if you discussed with someone you knew to send a file attachment to your Instagram account.

 

REMOVE VITAL INFORMATION IN YOUR POSTS

You can improve the security o your Instagram account by removing any vital information that could be used to track your device or other accounts you are using in other social network or pages you control. Some hackers can be patient enough to gather all vital information obtained from your previous posts and use it to launch attack on your Instagram account.