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How to protect your social media accounts from hackers and attackers! 5 tips

Organisers Info | Traders- Hints & Tips

The things you need to know to be as safe a possible.

How to protect your social media accounts from hackers and attackers

Social media is an integral part of your independent business. Almost 50% of the world’s population use social media now, so it’s exactly where you and your business need to be seen. But it comes with risks. We’ve put together 5 top tips on how to protect your social media accounts from hackers and attackers, so you can keep your business socials safe.

How to protect your social media accounts from hackers and attackers

Here’s a lot of 5 things that you really need to be using:

  1. STRONG PASSWORDS. Set strong and unique passwords. This may sound like we’re teaching you to suck eggs, but so many people still use easily guessable passwords – ‘password123’ is NOT it!! Scammers are experts in guessing them, and have software to help them, so be aware.

    A strong password is your first line of defence. Ideally, pick one that has a minimum of eight characters (most sites won’t let you use under this anyway), preferably 12. Use a combination of upper and lower-case letters, both symbols (if you can) and numbers – and don’t make it a ‘word’ as such. Typing ‘fw2cg-dA@5’ would be stronger than ‘dog34’ for instance. Also make them unique to each of your accounts! It’s so easy to just want one password across all of your accounts BUT then hackers only need to guess one password and they’ve got instant access to everything! Don’t share your passwords with anyone else, change your passwords frequently, and make them strong. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of having the same password or never changing them, but much more secure to switch them up regularly!
  2. TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION. Ideally, do multi-step auth on everything, but at least have two-factor authentication for your socials.

    A hacker could have your full name and your email address quite easily if you have a business – sometimes even your address depending on what’s on Companies House and your business registration documents. They might steal your password AND they could even guess the secret answer to questions! However, if you lock it with your fingerprint, face authentication, or even your phone password, it will become much harder for them to access.
  3. CHECK YOUR PERMISSIONS. Another way to protect your social media accounts from hackers is to keep a tight reign on who has permissions to your accounts – which can be difficult when you have a large team.

    Log into each of your accounts and see if anyone else has access to them. Check any associated email addresses and phone numbers. If you don’t recognise any of the information on them, remove them immediately. If it’s important for your business (e.g a third party scheduling app), you can always add it in again.

    Also check which other apps you are using via your Facebook/Meta business suite, because when you use your social media account to log in to a different website or app, you often end up sharing a lot of the information from your Facebook page with that site. If there are any apps that you no longer use or do not recognise, revoke the permissions on them. Most of these can be easily viewed via your settings.
  4. GET SOME ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE. Antivirus software such as McAfee or Norton stops malware before it downloads to your system or device, so if you’ve clicked on a rogue website that would try to send you malware, they can block it. You can run virus scanners regularly and remove any malicious software that may be stealing your personal and business information, to make hacking for criminals easier.
  5. WATCH OUT FOR PHISHING. ‘Phishing’ is when scammers pretend to be another site that is authentic, and this is becoming more common over text and WhatsApp, never mind emails and websites! A text from an unknown number saying you have a parcel to collect from the Post Office/Evri/ another delivery site is common, and when you’re running a business and ordering materials etc it’s easy to get sucked in. One big clue is if they sent you a URL / link to click – often it will be made up of random letters and numbers and won’t be a reputable website (e.g. Evri.com). Click here for a current list of common scams.

    Always double check before responding to any messages that you do not recognise. Stop and review the message/email first. Look for things like spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes and email addresses that don’t match the names on emails.

    One current scam technique when targeting traders is to email or message from a fellow trader’s account and request for help with something, such as voting for them in a competition.

    There is also a ‘market scam’, where people will pretend to be a market organiser and try and approach you for unpaid stall fees! Click here to read more about that. Again, always try to cross-reference with legitimate websites and email addresses.

We do hope this helps – good luck out there!!

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