There are many sharks in the deep waters of social media wanting to bite off a piece of your valuable data. However, if you keep an eye on your accounts and familiarize yourself with potential risks, you may freely swim through any water, regardless of its dwellers.

SOCIAL MEDIA SECURITY RISKS

One of the most common ways of exploiting social media accounts is harvesting users’ data. Even if you think of a post about your latest movie night with friends as something irrelevant, it could be a gateway to your more important information to those who know where to look. For example, most photos you post on social media contain metadata with the information where and when the photo has been taken. If you don’t want to be identified on social media platforms without your awareness, make sure to strip your photos from metadata before posting them online.

Furthermore, social media tends to be an excellent territory for phishing attacks where scammers lure people into clicking on infected links or logging into fake pages to gain access to their credentials. After getting their fingers on users’ login information, they can easily hack their accounts or even commit crimes using their personal information.

HOW TO SECURE YOUR ACCOUNTS

1. Keep your credentials safe

Protecting your passwords and login information should be a priority if you want to stay safe on social media. Make sure to create long and unique passwords and never reuse them across multiple platforms. Also, since our memory and creativity tend to have their limits, we often change only a few characters in our passwords and use almost identical credentials over our accounts. Thus, consider switching to a password manager because it creates an infinite number of hard-to-break passwords and encrypts all your credentials to make sure that it stays safe no matter who tries to get to it.

2. Add a multi-factor authentication

Even though passwords tend to be widely used and pretty convenient, they sometimes fall short of securing our accounts on their own in this day and age. Thus, adding a few more levels of protection over your passwords can have a significant impact on your account security. For example, some MFAs add biometric features like fingerprints to further personalize your login process and make it even harder to hack it. In addition to biometrics, you can protect your sensitive data with an app that generates one-time passcodes to verify your access.

3. Avoid public networks

Connecting to a free WiFi in a restaurant while waiting for your dinner can seem harmless, but even though the network looks legitimate, it doesn’t mean that it really is. Keep in mind that cybercriminals often create malicious networks to steal users’ data and use it against them. If you can’t bypass public WiFi, make sure to use a VPN to encrypt your data in traffic.

4. Turn on suspicious login alert

If you want to ensure that nobody can access your social media accounts, check your account settings and turn on notifications for suspicious login attempts. Most social media platforms have an option to alarm you if someone tries to gain access to your account. If you don’t recognize the activity you’ve been alerted about, you can simply mark it as ‘It wasn’t me,’ and you’ll get the option to change your credentials to prevent further damage immediately.

To stay protected on social media, keep a close look at your credentials and the networks you’re connecting to. Also, be mindful of your online activities and make sure to implement these few suggestions into your security framework.

The post How to Successfully Protect your Social Media Accounts appeared first on Kathy Perry - Social Media & Digital Marketing Consulting.

Listen in to the 9 minute, rapid-fire 6 question interview here:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6734135776336068608/

Here is some of the information I shared in the interview:

I’m a Social Media Consultant and Facebook Advertising Specialist. I work with Entrepreneurs & Business Owners to Maximize every dollar spent in Marketing to get more clients and orders, using today’s available Social Media Technology at a Fraction of the Cost of Traditional Media, so you don’t waste your time or money.

I TAKE THE EEK! OUT OF GEEK and make Facebook Advertising and Social Media Marketing simple and effective.

If people are having difficulty:
~ with trying to generate more leads and sales.
~ are frustrated and overwhelmed with the technology
~ have tried Facebook Advertising in the past and it didn’t work.
~ get confused and have difficulty keeping up with all the changes.
~ don’t have time and are too busy running your own business to add this to your plate.
~ have tried all types of traditional media and they aren’t working for you.

It’s very rewarding to be able to assist businesses in an area of their business that they are overwhelmed, stressed or frustrated with – being able to assist in optimizing their social media pages, manage ad campaigns and help create virtual products to generate more leads and sales, while removing their overwhelm, stress and frustration.

One of my clients, June Drennon, CEO of Florida Medical Thermography always uses this quote when talking to other businesses about me: “The thing I love about working with Kathy is, when I come up with some new brainstorm or great idea, she says, ‘Let me share with you why that might not be such a great idea.’ She saves me time and money!”

Shiney new objects come out every day – don’t be fooled. You need a Marketing Action Plan to Target the Right Audience, with the Right Message at the Right Time, so you won’t be wasting your Money or Time chasing the wrong audience that isn’t even interested in your product or service.

I’m a BrainTrust Member on the Small Business Advocate Radio show with Jim Blasingame and have been on the show for 10 years covering all the latest changes and updates in social media.

I’m a co-author in Stepping Stones to Success with Deepak Chopra & Jack Canfield.

I offer a lot of free downloads on my website under the Products Tab. Enjoy!

The post Kathy interview – OnFire Ignites Podcast appeared first on Kathy Perry - Social Media & Digital Marketing Consulting.

Listen in to my Radio Interview on the Jim Blasingame Small Business Advocate Radio Show where we talk about the issues Linkedin is facing with fake accounts:
 
https://www.smallbusinessadvocate.com/small-business-interviews/kathy-perry-28132

Requests from strangers on Linkedin have not generally been an issue in the past, but with a recent onslaught of hackers using Linkedin to get your personal information/connections/email address, etc.; they are having an easier time getting people to click on an email that contains malware, all because they have established themselves as a personal connection on Linkedin with a fake account.

Linkedin is urging it’s users to be careful who you connect with and investigate before you click “Accept”. The compromised Linkedin accounts are used to send phishing links via a private message and via InMail.

Linkedin has a team dedicated to getting rid of fake accounts and asks you to report fake accounts to them – you can do that here:
https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/61664/reporting-fake-profiles?lang=en

As always, be careful what you click on!

To Success!
Kathy Perry

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