Protect Yourself from Social Media Hacking

2023 will see a rise of 10% in social media user numbers, which means 257 million people will use one or more social media platforms this year. 

Unfortunately, the extreme popularity of social media platforms provides ample opportunity for criminals to hack individual and business accounts to commit digital fraud. Hackers infiltrate around 1.4 billion social media accounts every month. Up to 64% of companies on social media have experienced a hacking or fraud attempt on their platform. 

Nearly 50% of all social media hacks are phishing scams aimed at collecting sensitive data. Facebook alone sees up to 300,000 hacking attempts every day, with other platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn experiencing high-profile account hacking on a large scale.

2023 has barely begun, and the Lily Collins data breach has already caused thousands of Facebook users to lose access to their accounts. These users include hundreds of business owners and professionals who now cannot retrieve their online data.

The danger of the Lily Collins data breach

West Hartford-based real estate agent Evan Berman is just one of the many victims of the Lily Collins hackers. Berman had received a number of emails warning him that someone from Seattle had accessed his Facebook profile and changed all his contact information. 

When Berman saw the emails the following day, he realized a hacker had gained access to his Facebook account. The hacker locked Berman out of his account and changed his profile picture and name to those of the famous actress Lily Collins. Berman lost every one of the business contacts he’d built up over the years and received no help from Meta. While attempting to contact Meta, he completed online forms to alert the company to the situation, but he then realized his accounts had been completely deleted.

The Lily Collins hack is a malicious ChatGPT link that pops up on Facebook as an advertisement. When a user clicks on the link to install the ChatGPT extension, a virus infects their computer, allowing a hacker to steal their information by mirroring Facebook. 

It has since been revealed that Meta is deleting the Facebook and Instagram accounts of users affected by the hack without providing a way for them to retain years of memories and connections.

Hartford’s excellent response to the 2020 cyberattack

In contrast to Meta’s apparent apathy to the Lily Collins hacking drama, the Connecticut Military Department’s Joint Cyber Response Team jumped into action within hours of a cyberattack that affected the start of the school year in 2020.

The cyberattack disrupted 40 schools, 3,500 computers, and 300 servers, including those of fire and police departments. The Joint Cyber Response Team restored services the same day and, at the same time, assisted the Hartford IT Department with crisis management and triage.

The city canceled only the first day of school and the police chief, school superintendent, mayor, and head of IT held a press conference to detail the city’s immediate response to the cyberattack.

The next day, the team analyzed existing weaknesses in Hartford’s existing IT infrastructure and made recommendations to prevent any further attacks. These recommendations were taken to heart by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, and together with the Joint team, they are ensuring that cyber hackers don’t have another chance to infiltrate any government systems. 

The US National Cybersecurity Strategy 

In March 2023, President Joe Biden announced the new National Cybersecurity Strategy, which aims to secure US cyberspace and make it nearly impossible to launch an attack or hack IT infrastructure. 

A cybersecurity strategy is of the utmost importance because ransomware attacks cost the US economy millions of dollars in losses annually. Risk experts have listed cybercrime as the 8th biggest risk to the US in terms of short- and long-term impact. 

According to Biden, cybersecurity will stabilize the basic functioning of the economy and allow critical infrastructure to continue to operate as normal. It also ensures data privacy, as well as the privacy of communications and national defense. 

The National Security Strategy operates in line with the following five pillars: 

• Defending all critical infrastructure
• Disrupting all threat actors
• Driving security and resilience
• Investing in a resilient and diverse cyber workforce
• Forging international partnerships to counter cyber threats and attacks

How to protect your online accounts from cyberattacks  

Despite all the measures taken to prevent cyberattacks, hackers will always try and find vulnerable accounts to hack. When it comes to personal cybersecurity, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. You can take the following steps to help protect your online accounts, including your social media accounts:

• Ensure your firewall is always enabled, especially if you do a lot of online shopping. 
• Invest in antivirus software that notifies you if it detects a malware threat or account breaching attempt. 
• Add anti-spyware to your online security measures to help block threats and scan incoming information and messages for malware.
• Don’t use the same password for everything. Instead, use complex passwords for all websites and your social media accounts. Complex passwords include more than eight characters, upper and lowercase letters, special characters, and numbers. The shorter the password, the easier it is for a hacker to break it.
• Install new operating system updates on all your devices as soon as they are available. 
• Never open spam messages.
• Back up your hard drive regularly, especially if you have an online business.
• Secure your routers with an encrypted set-up.
• Use two-factor authentication for your social media apps, including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and more. 
• Never log into any of your social media accounts on public devices.
• Change your passwords if you suspect someone has tried to hack your accounts.
• Enable login notifications on all your social media accounts. 

If you’re active on TikTok and buying followers to build your presence on this platform, only use reputable network growth companies like Celebian. Celebian has garnered a reputation for being a trustworthy and reliable source of authentic TikTok followers at affordable prices. 

Celebian provides anonymity and keeps all your information private when you sign up. Additionally, the company will never ask for unnecessary account details or sensitive information.

Conclusion

You can keep your social media accounts out of hackers’ hands by being wise about social media use and keeping your passwords private. It’s also crucial that you work only with well-known, trusted brands when buying followers to ensure that your private information isn’t compromised.