Twitter hacks: How smartly to avoid them
You might be surprised to know that Twitter currently has fifty million users active every day. But these days, people’s Twitter account has been getting hacked regularly. And, not once, but also twice every month! But, don’t worry. Don’t be that vulnerable to let others attack you. So, here are some tips to avoid your Twitter account from getting hacked.
Pick a strong password of eight characters and make sure that it has numbers and symbols
This is probably the simplest tip that I can provide to prevent your page from getting hacked. Well, if you want the title to be clearer, then I can simply tell that use some word which is not there in the dictionary. There are computerized dictionary attacks which are effortlessly capable of finding and abusing those words within no time.
Whenever you log into your account, make sure that www.twitter.com is in the address bar
There are many fake sites, viruses, spyware and malware which are often masked as common links. Also, you need to be very careful whenever you click on the links that you receive in your Twitter messages. Especially, all those people whom you do not know personally. For your benefit, I’ll give you a tip. Just observe that all those words that come between twitter and the extension.com are sure pointers that you will not be connected to Twitter.
Limit third part access
Trusted applications should have only popular and trustworthy sources like Facebook, Hootsuite, TweetDeck etc. although applications and programs developed by third party developers can be convenient and easy, they should be made use of very cautiously. But now, an article recently published reports that Twitter has rendered all third party applications out of date.
Change your password regularly
These days, password hacking has become very advanced. People usually use passwords like iloveu, love and such. Well, they are like welcome mats to all hackers around the world. So, I suggest you to use passwords which are quite random and very long. Also, frequently keep changing it.
Don’t share passwords via email
You should never ever share your passwords through email. No matter for what purpose it is. You can instead call the person and tell him personally. Or, your account might probably get hacked within an hour.
Add your phone number
Through text messages, Twitter helps you to interact who people whom you follow and also people who follow you. At the same time, it also acts as a security measure. So, if you add your phone number to your Twitter account, it is impossible for others to change your password until they get hold of your phone.
Require personal information
There is a security setting available on Twitter where you need to include your personal information like your phone number or email address before changing your password. But, this information is not required by default. So, you need to enable this option. You can do so by ticking a particular box which says – Require personal information to reset my password.
Log in and out with care
As mentioned earlier, whenever you log into your account, make sure that there is only www.twitter.com displayed in the address bar. Or, your username and password have possible changes of being stolen. And, see to it that you always log out after using Twitter, especially on your smartphone. As smartphones can also get lost or be stolen.
Regularly check your account
Well, I know this is common sense. But, it is necessary that you check your Twitter account on a regular basis just to ensure that everything is going on fine. Because, there are many cases where Twitter accounts have been hacked when not used for a couple of days.
Do not reuse passwords
Many people usually have the same passwords for all social networking sites as they find it easy to remember. But, this is another open doorway for hackers to steal your password.
Save a back up
You should always save a back up of your website on either a flash drive or any online service. It does not matter even if the website is too small. So, in case your account ever gets hacked, you can reset your password and put on your old site.
About The Author: Kelly is a writer/blogger. She loves writing, traveling and reading books. She contributes on Lex Kogan
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