Does it appear that your social media accounts are being hacked? Being hacked on your social media can be a scary proposition because you have a lot of personal information on your feeds. This article is about what is 2FA, why you need it, and how to enable 2FA on your social media accounts. It has become standard practice to enable two-factor authentication on ALL your account, not just social media.
Introduction
Two-factor authentication is a security measure that requires two parts of authentication – a password and passcode in a text message, email, or mobile app. Two-factor authentication is a great way to get an extra layer of protection for your account. Rather than just requiring a login & password, you need both in order to access the account. This makes it much harder for anyone else to get access that way.
2FA is one of the most commonly used security tools both on social media, banking, and email. If someone tries to log in as you by using your account name and password, they\’ll be asked for one more piece of information from their 2FA app or email.
A word of caution: email is not the best way to do the second phase of 2FA because it is unencrypted. Not only this, but every email that you send across the Internet is sent as plain text and can easily be intercepted by attackers.
Why do you need 2FA on your social media accounts?
There are many reasons why you need 2FA on all of your social media accounts. You have to assume that attackers will try to gain access and relieve you of your account, so it\’s important that you protect yourself accordingly.
Data breaches are becoming more and more common, and the number of them is growing. In 2017, there were 2,093 data breaches tracked by The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). This number has continued to rise in 2018 and 2019.
It is clear that data breaches in 2021 were really high. The ITRC reports that, through the end of September, they were up 17% compared to last year and overtook 2020\’s total number of incidents.
Unfortunately, passwords alone are not a good security plan. Attackers today can break passwords of any length quickly. It’s important to use long and complex passwords but most of us aren’t able to do this. Here is a link to the most common passwords in 2021
Here are links to data breaches for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that have occurred over the last several years.
- Facebook Data Breach
Facebook has faced a lot of trouble in recent years, from the Cambridge Analytica scandal to the recent data breaches. The social media giant is experiencing its worst week ever with new revelations coming out every day and its stock price plummeting. - Twitter Data Breach
On Wednesday, September 12th 2018, Twitter was hacked and over 32 million user credentials were leaked. The leak included usernames, email addresses and encrypted passwords. Twitter\’s stock dropped by 4% following the leak. - Instagram Data Breach
On Tuesday, October 10, 2018 Instagram confirmed that hackers had been able to extract data on up to 6 million users. Facebook subsidiary Instagram was not the only company affected by this breach; in total, the cyberattack affected a whopping 400 million accounts.
The latest data breaches show how important 2FA is and why you should enable it on all your accounts. You should use it on all your social media accounts now if you are not already. The above breaches are a warning to enable 2FA on your social media accounts! What are you waiting for?
The Benefits of Using Two-Factor Authentication
The use of two-factor authentication (2FA) has been a contentious topic for many years, but with recent data breaches, the need for 2FA is more important than ever.
Here are some benefits:
- It is an effective way to protect your account from being hacked.
- It provides an extra layer of protection against unauthorized access.
- It makes it more difficult for malicious actors to access your account.
- The process is easy and quick to set up and use.
- It can be used on all devices that have access to the internet.
How to Turn on Two-Factor Authentication on Your Social Media Accounts
Two-factor authentication is a security measure that requires two different ways to verify your identity. This can be achieved by providing a password and entering a one-time code generated by an app on your phone, through text messages, or through the use of a hardware token.
A word of caution on text messages. Most test messages are not encrypted and sent as plain text. So, an attacker can monitor and get your text messages.
This security measure is important because it prevents hackers from accessing your account even if they have the password by providing an extra layer of security which makes it much more difficult for them to break into your account.
How to Setup Two-Factor Authentication on Your Social Media Accounts
Two-factor authentication is a security measure which requires you to enter a code that is sent to your mobile phone app in addition to your username and password. An app is the preferred way to generate codes for your setup. I would highly recommend this practice over using text messages or emails.
Here are some tips on how to set up two-factor authentication on your social media accounts:
- How to enable 2FA in Facebook
- How to enable 2FA in Twitter
- How to enable 2FA in Instagram
- How to enable 2FA in Pinterest
Conclusion
Enabling 2FA on your social media accounts is important if you have not done so already. It helps protect you if your password has been stolen by an attacker through a hack or a data breach. This article reviewed 2FA, why it is important, and how you can enable it on your social media accounts.
If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments and if this post was helpful to you.
