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The social web has become so popular these days. From the international social sites like facebook, twitter, MySpace and others to few national gathering webs that house interested people from a particular country, we are at that era when kids look up to opening a social media account rather than being so worried by homework and other commitments.
Yes, we all spend time on the social web; chatting with friends and family, making new friends and pushing the limits of our businesses to reach more social audience from various parts of the globe. However, what we may not have realized is that hackers, identity thieves and other cyber criminals have suddenly shifted their attention to social platforms. Who would blame them; they go where the land is green, and with nearly a billion users on facebook, who said the land is not green on the social web?
Hence if you don’t want to lose your social media account details to social-network scammers, phishers and cyber criminals, here are a few tips that may be of help.
Use Modern Browsers and a Security Suite
I suppose we have all known the importance of using a security suite, especially if you visit the internet at all. If you haven’t, why not source a free security packaged and install it in your system at the very least? While this may not totally protect you from strong attacks, it can help shield minor security threats.
Additionally, it is necessary that you use modern browsers. The latest versions of Internet Explorer, FireFox and Google Chrome are all built with some protective features and settings meant to protect users from dangerous sites, links and to help control suspected activities that may have previously went through in the background.
Beware of Links
Unless you truly know and trust the sender, any link that tends to take you out of the social networking site to watch a certain video or photo should be thoroughly examined. Most times hackers may even gain control of your pals account and use it to target his friends and social connections. Hence if you weren’t able to ascertain the authenticity of a particular link from your pal, why not send him a note asking what it’s all about?
Additionally, the social web is full of short urls. This is more rampant on Twitter where users try as much as they can not to exceed the 140 character limit. However, the worst is, unless when stated, there is no way you can really know what is happening on the destination page unless you click the link.
To this end, if you click to any page that request your social password please leave immediately even if the page looks exactly like facebook, twitter or any of the other social sites. If you have a facebook store and went on to hand over your details to the people behind this phishing site, imagine what would become of your business?
On the other hand, if you have fans and followers you would want to direct to your money site, always tell them what to expect from the destination page these will even help to presale them. For instance, I get a lot of social traffic to my digital product review blog featuring product options like Mixbook coupon, Pinnacle Studio codes and many others, but I made sure to tell my social audience what to expect from any page I am sending them to. And despite having great results with this, I am yet to witness any short comings.
Use Hard-To-Guess Passwords
You may have known this but it is worth mentioning again. It is important that you don’t use your first name, last name or nick name as your password. Properly varying your passwords by using capital and small alphabets, numerals and symbols will help shield off those attackers that may try using texts and items around you to hack your accounts.
The social web is amazingly providing us with a lot of personal and professional benefits. But while we enjoy these opportunities, let us not forget that there are always the ill-thinkers who are patiently waiting to rip us off the fruit of our sweat and even drag our name on the mug in the process.
Author Bio
Steven runs a digital product review blog featuring options like coupon vouchers for Mixbook and Pinnacle discount codes. These Mixbook discounts and Pinnacle coupon blog are consistently updated to ensure you save more as you get the best products.
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These are all good points–especially about links. I am so wary of those links unless it is on a trusted news site. Great article!
Thanks Robert. Particularly I don’t like clicking on links that tends to take me out of the social platform.
Social media has brought a lot of opportunities to both the users and the hackers.One should trust the link on which they are going to bounce on.
Hi Aditya! Thanks for stopping by. The thing with these links is that despite the few trusted marketers with a bit of reputation, most people abuse it in an attempt to gain some social traffic. I simply ignore the link if I don’t know where it is taking me to and the source did not attempt to explain.
Sometime before my Firefox browser affected by iclaro:search.it gave me some problems.I after some time I reinstall my browsers again after uninstalling.
It is very necessary to install a security suite to preventing threats from harmful sites.
Thanks for your attention.
You are so welcome Bhushan. I am glad you liked these points.
I hate short URLs! I can’t figure it out what’s on the final source. I have a good antivirus that blocks uncertain websites; this is my only consolation, but I have a feeling I’m not fully protected.
At least you have the basic protection suite and settings implemented already. Ensure your protection suite is always up-to-date, don’t sell yourself short by sharing personal details and always be sure before you click on any link… Thanks Stan!
Hey Steven! Thanks for taking time to reply and give me a piece of advice 😀 I’ll follow it. Have a nice day!
Social media has brought a lot of users and fraudulent. So you clearly define specific behaviors and actions that aren’t acceptable.
Good List, i appreciate Really all points are necessary to yourself and business from social media assaults. there is installed antivirus in my system which is very good for my system. but sometimes i feel my system is not fully protected. but now i will do it.thanks for sharing this points.
I am Agree with you I have a good antivirus that blocks uncertain websites; this is my only consolation, but sometimes i feel the antivirus is not doing fully protected of my system.thanks i am glad you liked these post.