It's one of the most frustrating situations we can find ourselves in when hackers take over our Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok or other social media accounts, but there are actions you can take right now to prevent it from happening.
As we know, hacking is extremely dangerous because cyber impostors can try to access our social security numbers, bank account numbers and all kinds of personal information.
So first of all, you have to identify when someone has hacked your account.
Here are some red flags:
Get top local stories in San Diego delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC San Diego's News Headlines newsletter.
- You will not be able to access your account
- You will receive a notification about changes in your account like user name or password
- You will also receive a notification that someone has accessed your account from an unknown device
- Your friends or family inform you about suspicious or alarming messages or emails
What can you do if your account was hacked?
- Notify the company and also people you know
- Start the process to recover your accounts
- Once you recover your account, take security measures so that it doesn't happen again.
- Unlock your account from all devices to log in again, that way anyone logged into your account on another device will be kicked out
- Create a secure password that is difficult to crack
- Activate two-factor authentication
- Check your account recovery information. Make sure the recovery email addresses and phone numbers are the ones you entered and have access to.
- Check your social media accounts to see if there are messages that the hacker posted or sent.
Your email account is an important part of protecting your personal information online because if someone hacks your email account, they may change your passwords for any of your other accounts and block you from them.
