Recognizing and Avoiding Phishing Scams

1. Social Media Hacking

A social media hacker steals or cracks your password to log in without your knowledge. After changing your contact information, they might lock you out of your account. If a scammer does this, they may contact you and say that if you pay them, they’ll give you the account back, but even if you do, they’ll likely want more and never return it.

Protecting yourself:

Strong passwords for everything, not just social media, make it tougher for hackers to utilize technology to break codes. Always use passwords above 8 letters or digits with at least one capital letter and one ‘special character’ like! or ?

Set up ‘two factor authentication’ (2FA) on social media and elsewhere. It implies there are at least two methods to verify your identity and access your account. This might be an email and cellphone number.

2. Account recovery fraud

If you post that your account has been hacked, other fraudsters may offer to assist you regain access for a modest cost, termed a ‘account recovery scam’. If you pay the tiny price, it might grow and prevent you from accessing your account.

Protecting yourself:

It’s advisable to keep your social media presence secret and ignore friend and message requests from strangers.
If hacked:

Don’t blame yourself—anyone can do it. You should notify a trustworthy adult so they can help.
Contact Instagram or TikTok, which controls the account. Tell them you were hacked and lost control of your account.
To prevent fraudsters from taking control of additional accounts that utilize the compromised account, change their passwords.

3. Phishing

Phishing schemes mainly use emails, DMs, or texts. Scammers send these mails to gain your email addresses and login credentials. They do it to deceive you or sell your information.

Key features of phishing texts might help you recognize them:

A suspiciously strange or misspelled link to click on.

A reward, ‘you’ve won a new iPhone!’, or a warning, ‘log in immediately or your films will be deleted!’

Fraudulent requests for login data, email addresses, your date of birth, address, or phone number from a firm or organization you know.

How to avoid phishing

Never click unexpected links in emails, direct messages, or texts.

In addition to phishing, scammers may use them to infect your computer or phone with viruses or malware.

Always doubt anything you see online, whether in your email, DMs, or publicly. Better safe than sorry, even if it seems innocuous.

A parent or guardian can help you identify phishing messages.