It is high time to keep your social media accounts safe

A major data leak at SocialArks exposed 318 million records, across 214 million social media accounts. For a social media influencer who relies on their social media accounts for keeping followers invested and sharing branded content and collaborations, having profiles hacked could pose a threatening situation, jeopardising income and financial security. With over 200,000 social media influencers with their personal information (including passwords) exposed for the world to see, it is more crucial than ever to ensure your details are protected.

If social media is your livelihood, someone gaining access to your accounts could mean a huge drop of income and possibly even a loss of future brand collaborations and advertisement deals. There are many things that can be done to ensure your privacy remains secure - and there is much more to it than simply ensuring you have a really secure and unique password that’s changed on a regular basis. All these small measures add up when it comes to online security, which is why we need to follow a fool-proof list of dos and don’ts.

It is always advised to pick a super-strong password and it is one of the most common mistakes people are making every day is their poor choice of password. By using the name of a pet, loved one, or even your street name, you are making it extremely easy for a hacker to compromise your accounts, and with just a few key pieces of information on you, an expert will have no problem mapping out the required words and phrases related to your life. In order to stay as safe as possible, use a complicated combination of upper- and lower-case letters, random numbers and special characters/symbols.

To avoid forgetting any of your passwords, create a secure or locked list on sites such as LastPass, NordPass or Dashlane for extra security. Remember, storing passwords on the notes page in your smartphone and tablet or in an email on your computer without using encryption is very risky, because if your device encounters a virus, hackers can easily get hold of them this way with almost no effort.

Secondly, avoid posting photos that show where you live even if you post a photo of somewhere near your home, people intent on stealing your personal information or tracking you down could be able to work out your address with some clever sleuthing.