Here are 5 simple Ways To Prevent Your Twitter Account From Being Hacked. I tend to ignore Spam Direct Messages on Twitter, this is because most times they are malicious links that would lead to your account getting hacked.
5 Ways To Prevent Your Twitter Account From Being Hacked
1. Use a secure password
Use a solid Alpha-numerical password and keep it to yourself or better still have a list of those who have it e.g “fetalGoalista7490”. This would reduce the chances of you being exploited by a brute-force attempt. This is the first step to Prevent Your Twitter Account From Being Hacked.
2. Use Twitter Apps
If you’re using an iPhone your Twitter Account is integrated with the phone, you don’t really have to login and logout frequently, this would significantly lower the risk of signing into a malicious website disguised as twitter and would significantly prevent your Twitter Account from being hacked.
3. Know the people you Follow
It is a big ask to know all the people you follow except you follow just 10 people or less, but Only people you follow can send you Direct Messages so it is always good to have a faint idea of what kind of links these people can send to your DM’s. If you know the kind of links you the people you follow can’t send you then when you see a malicious one it would be easy to identify and you get to prevent your Twitter Account from being hacked.
4. Even if you Open those links, check your address bar
If you open a spam link, most times there’s a lot of disguise going on, because the aim of this link is get your password, the only way it can get this password is by you typing it in.
So instead of the link directing you to twitter.com it would direct you to a dummy site e.g twltter.com
If you look closely you would notice “l” has replaced “i” and an unsuspecting user would go ahead and enter his username and password, unknowingly he has just submitted his login details to spammers.
The Spammers would use this login details to login and send a DM to all his followers containing a link to an advert or a similar hack link to multiply the process. This is probably the most important thing to note as this is how a twitter account is commonly hacked. Pprevent your Twitter Account from being hacked by simply checking properly the address bar before you sign in.
5. Clean up
Everyone falls victims of these hackers sometimes but it is important to always clean up every backdoor they left behind.
@ladygaga – last hacked Apr 27, 2011
@justinbieber – last hacked Jul 27, 2010
@barackobama – last hacked Jan 05, 2009
@katyperry – last hacked Jan 29, 2010
@kimkardashian – last hacked Apr 01, 2011
What to do when your twitter account is hacked?
If you have fallen victim of a hack, you need to change your reset and change your password, go to settings – Application Access and revoke access to any strange application you find there.
It would also be nice if you could send a DM to all your followers notifying them of the hack & informing them not to open any malicious link they might have received from your account.
One simple trick I use to prevent hacks altogether, is a personal Verification system. When I receive a DM I simply tell the person to verify by retyping a particular word or answering a simple question. Most spams or hacks are automated, so the would easily fail this verification process.
Now that you’ve learnt how to protect yourself from hackers, you should be able to prevent your Twitter Account from being hacked.
Highly energetic blog, I loved that a lot.
Will there bbe a part 2?
awesome blog , thanks for sharing , it was worth reading