Noticed strange activity on one of your social media accounts?
Having your social accounts accessed by a stranger is disturbing and stressful. The key thing is as soon as you notice something odd happening, do something, don’t wait.
When this happened to one of our Mindshift team recently, we found there wasn’t a single place to go to find out what steps to take. So, in true Mindshift style, we put together this short checklist to help people if they think their social media has been accessed or hacked. We discovered there are many different scenarios, causes, and outcomes but we hope this checklist is a helpful start on the road to recovery.
Signs that a social account has been hacked or impersonated (someone has set up a new account with your profile pic, accessed your friends list and messaged them pretending to be you) could include:
Friends contact you to query a strange conversation they're having with you.
Friends ask you why you're communicating with them using a platform you don't usually chat on.
A random person joins a group chat using your account.
If you experience one of these signs or your gut tells you something's not right, follow this checklist. These are the first steps to take control of the unfortunate situation.
1) Stay calm
By following this checklist you're taking control to protect your information and that of your friends who have potentially engaged with the hacker too.
2) Change all your social media passwords
Make them different for each online account. And make them long and strong to prevent them from being easily guessable by attackers.
3) Check your recovery email address is still correct
A hacker can be quick to change this to get control over your account.
4) Change your profile pictures
5) If you want to alert friends, make a post on a different channel
If something's happened to your Instagram or Messenger, shut those down and do a Facebook post.
Make sure all social platforms are set to share posts with friends and family only.
Be factual, tell them what's happened and if they see a specific conversation, it's not you. Include a screenshot if you have one to help them understand what to look out for.
Advise them if they've shared their password or clicked on a link in the chat, then to follow this checklist.
6) Make sure your 2-factor authentication (2FA) is turned on
It's the extra piece of security to prove who you are. It will go a long way to prevent your whole account from being taken over. But unfortunately it won't prevent your account from being impersonated.
7) As the account owner, report it to the affected platform
For example, if your Instagram account has been impersonated, you can report it by filling in a short online form and supplying your photo ID.
You don't need to be inside Instagram to do this. Google search ‘What can I do if someone is impersonating me on instagram’.
8) Recommend your friends report it as spam
Simply click the to the right of the profile and tap ‘Report’. The more people who report it, the faster the problem will be addressed.
