Please take note of the following information to guide and guard your online platforms against the attack of scams or hackers.
1. Make sure you activate the two-way authentication on your WhatsApp. This is one of the WhatsApp inbuilt features. To do this, just go to SETTINGS on your WhatsApp, click on SECURITY, there you will see TWO-STEP VERIFICATION, click on it, click on ENABLE & follow the process.
2. Do well to activate two-way authentication on your Facebook, Twitter, IG, Gmail, LinkedIn accounts. Unlike WhatsApp which has inbuilt features, this can only be achieved for these apps through third-party applications. i.e. either you activate it for SMS, such that you receive SMS code whenever a new device attempts to login into any of your accounts, or you download Duos Mobile app & register all the accounts under it. Each time a new device attempts to login into any of the accounts, you must provide the code generated from Duos Mobile (within 30secs) otherwise, login won’t be possible)
If you can take your time to study the above properly, trust me, you won’t face the challenge of hackers penetrating your account UNLESS YOU GAVE THEM ACCESS.
These are ways you can consciously or unconsciously give hackers access to your accounts:
1. Using someone’s device to log in to your account and failure to sign out properly. AVOID using others’ devices to access your personal accounts, and if you must, ENSURE YOU LOG OUT COMPLETELY!
2. Sharing of codes: Hackers could call you or chat you up bearing some irresistibly unbelievable offers. Oftentimes, people do fall victim due to their insatiable desire for quick money. All they will do is ask you to give them a code you might have received via SMS or Email and pronto, your account is a goner! Warning, AVOID SHARING ANY CODE RECEIVED VIA EMAIL OR SMS OR ANY OTHER FORM WITH SOMEONE YOU CANNOT VOUCH FOR!
3. Click on links: Those who oftentimes fall prey to this particular ploy are those addicted to clicking on every screaming news headline without checking the source.
Some hackers now masquerade as bloggers, creating some blogs with a harmful virus that would easily penetrate any device used to access the blog. Once you click on the link and it takes you to the site, the virus works at a speed of lightning, permeating the carapace of your device, accessing your personal information.
To avoid going through this nightmare, AVOID CLICKING ON LINKS FROM UNKNOWN OR UNSECURED SOURCE. The IT pundits had made us realize that any site starting with HTTP cannot be trusted whilst the ones with https can be trusted. Even at that, when clicking on the site with https, let’s be very vigilant of landmines such as pop-up windows on the sites.
4. Maintaining dormant or fragile account: An account (especially Facebook) becomes dormant when you don’t access it for weeks. If you need to take a temporary break from Facebook, rather than just leaving your account vulnerable, why don’t you deactivate it? You can actually deactivate your account for months following the directions provided by Facebook, Instagram, etc. If you have no idea how to go about it, just click on ‘HELP’ and type “how to deactivate my account”. Also, an account becomes too fragile when your password is left unchanged for too long. It might interest you to know that the cyber attackers do carry out research and come up with ‘innovations’ from time to time in their ‘trade’. Hence, you wouldn’t want to be caught napping, would you? Do well to change your passwords, AT LEAST EVERY TWO MONTHS.
I do hope the above information is useful enough to save us from falling victim to cyber-attacks.
Please note that I am not cybersecurity or IT expert, but just a regular user and learner of the workings of the cyber world.
I am Macboodye©
