Affiliate marketing Secure affiliation – securing your Instagram account. Part 2
There are already over a billion active accounts on Instagram. This makes it one of the most popular social media in the world. Such large players on the market are trusted by private users and companies that use social media to promote their products and services. All thanks to the constantly appearing new features – Instagram is mainly based on photos and graphics, they can be shared as posts, reels or 24-hour stories. It inspires and makes it easier to reach a wide audience. Unfortunately, no place on the web is 100% safe.
Who needs my Instagram?
Many people think that their Instagram account is too unattractive to be targeted by scammers. However, this is a mistake. Anyone can be a victim of a scam, which is often only recognizable by notifications about a password change or an unusual login attempt. It happens that company accounts are taken over by co-workers or competitors, but often these are strangers. If the victim knows the owner of the account, the goal may be to take control of the business or business contacts. In the case of hackers, these targets vary from less to more dangerous. It may even be a desire to obtain a ransom. The thief then demands payment from the person for not posting the altered photos stolen from the profile on the Internet. More often, profiles are adopted to create so-called columns. This practice means stealing a fan page in order to use its credibility and broadcast advertisements that will then deceive other people. In this way, you can be redirected to a website that phishing data, contains pornography, automatically hacks a social media account, extorts payments or contains someone else’s products.
The most common reason for account theft, however, is the so-called creation of like farms. The stolen fanpage is directed to traffic increased by memes or videos directing to other profiles or pages. This is one of the fraudulent methods of generating likes or followers. It is worth remembering that in the case of Instagram, there is an option to log in to several accounts at the same time – other accounts are connected to the main account, so in the event of its takeover, they are also at risk. Maintaining security is essential, and it should be especially remembered by brands that communicate mainly via social media and want to maintain their good image online. A marketing agency can help you run a credible and thriving Instagram profile.
Two-factor login… here too
The primary method of securing your Instagram account is to use two-factor authentication. The corresponding option is in Settings. The user has three options that add an authentication element to the login layer. You can choose an authenticator app such as Duo Mobile or Google Authenticator (the most recommended solution), an SMS code sent to the user’s phone number, or additional methods such as login approval notifications and backup codes (to be copied to a safe place). In the case of SMS codes, you may encounter difficulties such as delays in the delivery of messages resulting in the expiration of the code or the potential ease of taking over SMS codes using a duplicate SIM card. Although two-step verification makes logging into the site a little longer, it is worth using for security reasons. Hackers who want to steal login details will have a much more difficult task.
Passwords and codes
There is a lot of talk about the fact that passwords to different accounts should not be the same, they should be changed regularly and not easy to guess ones. However, many people still ignore this recommendation – most often until they find out about the scam the hard way. Strong passwords have a minimum of 8 characters, including uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. When making changes, it is better to beware of minor modifications, such as adding only one character. It is worth using a password manager that will allow you to generate a very strong password for a selected application or website. With its help, the user will only log in to a verified, reliable website. The manager can detect a phishing attack and will not fill in the login fields. By applying different passwords to different accounts, even if one account is compromised, the rest will remain safe.
It is good if the password does not really mean anything and is a sequence of random characters. It is best to change them once a month, and obligatorily at least once a year. Among the security measures for users, Instagram also has the already mentioned “Additional methods”. They come in handy, for example, when you lose your phone, if you want to log in on another device. Before that, you need to generate 5 reserve codes in the Instagram app and store them elsewhere.
Spam protection
It is worth protecting your Instagram account not only from hacker attacks, but also from unwanted spam. A profile with posts with hundreds or thousands of comments will not be well received. Such spam is controversial especially in the case of large brands. Those who want to conduct their activities in a professional manner can be helped by the Onaffiliate agency. Instagram also allows users to protect themselves from annoying bots. To do this, go to Settings -> Privacy -> Limits. This category gives you access to options that restrict actions within a given profile. By default, the options are limited to the actions of users who do not follow the profile, but post “like for like” messages and those who have started following the account in the last week.
In addition, it is worth activating SMS/e-mail notifications, thanks to which you will not miss messages from the site about potential spammers, being marked by other profiles, etc. Spammy accounts often tag foreign profiles on their posts. You can control this by turning on the “Tag Validation for Your Account” option. In addition, it is worth reporting this type of activity to Instagram by marking it as spam.
Cybercriminals are present in all social media. They also target accounts that do not seem particularly attractive on the surface. Data theft is often used to build the popularity of fraud through someone else’s account, it happens that the profile is taken over in order to extort a ransom. Of course, it’s better to prevent this type of activity and use the available protections, such as two-factor verification and setting a strong password, as well as remember to secure the devices themselves.
