None of us are safe from hackers, and the best proof is the
most recent hack to the Burger King’s and Jeep’s twitter account; even Facebook
reported being victim of a sophisticated attack.
Many of us have seen our social media accounts compromised. And
you don’t have to be a large company or a famous celebrity to be hacked. We’ve
seen many of our friends and followers send spam messages and we were once
attacked and the
OfficeList account
was also sending messages we had not written.
But then what should we do to try and be as safe as
possible?
We’re sure that big companies like Burger King take plenty
of precautions but small companies or less recognized companies tend to ignore
this and provide a great bate for robots looking an account to hack and send
malicious messages or for hackers who do this to grow their online reputation
and have fun while business owners suffer.
Here are some of the tips to make your accounts safer:
·
Change your password periodically, at least
every three months.
·
Use a combination of letters, numbers and symbols.
·
Avoid “password” as a password itself, it’s the
most common.
·
Don’t think about 123456, it’s just as used as “password”
·
Try changing letters with numbers, for example 3
instead of E, i instead of 1, 2 instead of z and so on.
·
8 character passwords or longer are suggested.
·
Avoid using the same password in multiple
accounts.
If you are thinking: “I have nothing interesting to hide or
I’m not so famous, why would anyone hack my account” Think again! Be careful.
Hackers don’t always access accounts looking for
confidential information. Most of the times they do it for fun or to spread malicious
software. Have you ever received a message from a friend saying “someone is
saying bad things about you” followed by a link? If you clicked at the link,
then your account or computer might be at risk.
And if you have a bad memory, try using “incorrect” as a
password. That way if you forget it, the system will remind you the password is
incorrect!