Have you ever gotten an email advising you to change your security details because one of your accounts has been compromised? Well, you are not alone
Regular users are suffering the most damage as hacking grows more sophisticated. According to VPN Central's Deyan Georgiev, certain social media accounts are particularly open to hacker attacks.
Which accounts are hackers primarily aiming for?
In order to determine the average monthly searches for terms like "account hacked," "hacking," and "hack," VPN Central looked at 10 platforms and their average monthly searches for cybercrime.
According to research, the following websites were often searched for when looking for information about hacking:
Facebook: 67,940 searches
Instagram: 36,220 searches
Spotify: 25,920 searches
Twitch: 10,800 searches
Amazon: 6,170 searches
If you have accounts on these platforms, be sure to regularly change your password and enable multi-factor authentication.
Prevention tips
Avoid choosing a weak password: Even though "123456" and "password" have consistently been ranked as the weakest, most easily guessable passwords for years, people still use them as passwords. This is astounding. Avoid using obvious patterns when you're asked to establish or alter a password for a website. Choose something with at least 12 characters, made up of letters, numbers, and other symbols, advise SplashData and TeamsID.
Use multi factor authentication: A growing number of online services that deal with sensitive data (including Gmail, online bank accounts, and Slack, a popular group chat tool among businesses) give you the option of adding an extra step before inputting your password to access your account. A code is often delivered to the phone number you have on file. Although it takes a little longer to access the site, it significantly discourages anyone from trying to access your account.
Consider using a password manager: Most consumers, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), struggle to remember all of their passwords. Stronger passwords are those that are longer and more complex, although longer passwords can also be harder to remember. Use a trusted password manager to keep your passwords and security questions safe. Look for a trustworthy password manager on independent review websites and ask your friends and family which one they use. To keep the information in your password manager secure, choose a strong password.
