There’s been a lot of buzz around about hacking on Facebook and Twitter. Many people have had their accounts hacked in recent days. I woke up this morning and saw a mail from Twitter team alerting me to the fact that my Twitter account was hacked. And below the main content of the mail was this:

Then and only then did the reality of the truth hit home. I did notice a suspicious activity on my account while I was still there last night but it never occurred to me I may have been hacked. It happened shortly after I signed into a website that promised to increase my followers.

There are so many tweets telling you about sites that can inflate your follower stats in seconds like the one below:

The best warning is to AVOID THEM. My password was reset by the Twitter team and I had to choose a stronger one.

Here are just a few tips on staying protected:

  • Protect your password
  • Memorize your password, do not write it down
  • Do not share your password.
  • Avoid using one password for all your logins on the internet.
  • Don’t provide your password to someone.
  • Avoid logging in from public computers.
  • Change your password frequently.
  • Avoid dictionary words.
  • Avoid familiar items (names, phone number, etc).
  • Use a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters e.g Ae45#@$%
  • Use more characters (7+).

We all need to be very careful. I am glad I have had it sorted out.

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