Fake social media accounts continue to grow

Im Cyberspace toben unsichtbare Kriege

Fake Social Media Profiles

Millions of fake social media profiles

From well-known companies to celebrities to private individuals, anyone can be affected by a social media hack. What is the purpose of these fake profiles and how to protect yourself from this with a password manager?

Reasons for a social media hack

Certain factors such as celebrity or influence undoubtedly make it more likely that you will be the victim of a hacker attack. Facebook Instagram or Twitter is a great way to reach people, because here the reach is much greater than when you are on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter as a private person. In 2019, cybercriminals even managed to hijack the profile of then Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and spread aggressive tweets about it.

Facebook was already struggling with a massive data leak. More than 500 million user data was stolen in 2019 and reappeared on the net last year. Among them were full usernames, dates of birth, email addresses and other data.

Consequences of such a hack

The consequences of a social media hack are different, depending on how and for what reasons you use these platforms. A hacker who breaks into the social media account of a doctor’s office and posts misleading health information could, for example, damage the reputation of the operators for a short time.

If a hacker compromises the social media account of a candidate for public office, he can publish controversial points of view or other harmful material that could give an advantage to other political parties.

Hackers could also take advantage of the desire in many people to help others. A cybercriminal invades a social media account as an example and uses it to spread a convincing touching story that makes generous people give him money.

For example, on Facebook you receive a post that seems to come from a relative you haven’t seen in person for a long time. He asks for money, as he is seriously ill and is in a difficult situation. But in reality, not the relative, but the cybercriminal writes out from the hacked account.

Protection options

There are some ways to protect yourself in the best possible way from such acquisitions of the account.

Always make sure to use individual and strong passwords – password123 is not an option! Unknown people can hack it in a short time using the so-called brute force method. If you then also use the password for other online accounts, they are also at risk.

Support by password manager. This helps to create individual and strong passwords for each of the accounts and stores them in a virtual vault. With the app on the smartphone or the extension in the browser, you can then access this data from anywhere; in addition, the password manager can automatically fill in the access data on websites if desired.

Better, if not already mandatory for the application or website, is two-factor authentication (2FA). This means that you have to enter a code parallel to the login data. You can receive it via SMS on your smartphone, or you can use an app such as Google Authenticator. In this case, the app creates an individual code for the 2FA logins.

In general, you should be on social media with caution and a healthy distrust. If something seems strange to you, it is best to contact the operator of the platform or report the profile directly via the reporting function.

Ready to see us in action:

More To Explore

IWanta.tech
Logo
Enable registration in settings - general
Have any project in mind?

Contact us:

small_c_popup.png