In 2012, Linkedin reported that 20 of its users had their accounts compromised due to the hacking incidents caused by cyber criminals. Personal information entered in user's profiles were stolen by hackers who are aiming to grab personal information as ways to satisfy their personal greed. Most users were not able to log in with their personal accounts because it has already been compromised by hackers. Aside from Linkedin, there are other social media platforms that are also vulnerable with similar threats due to increasing sophistication of computer software and programs.

If you are not sure how to secure your account, it is important to learn the things that would help your social media to become safe from any third parties because it can significantly harm your personal information. Once that online criminal will discover that you are not using any security features on your social media profile, these criminals will start to sneak to any source of portals that they can penetrate in order to start invading your privacy. And when these criminals have already invaded your privacy, you will now be vulnerable to any threats that might cause your personal information to be exploited to the public without your knowledge.
social media
Social media
But hackers revealed that the actual number of accounts that were hacked totalled to at least 116 million by this one particular social media alone. The latest revelations announced by hackers just made a disturbing scenario due the unexpected number of accounts that are more vulnerable to cyber security threats in the future. These numbers show that almost 1/4 of the total number of registered accounts of Linkedin are vulnerable to exploitation by the hackers to other third parties. Hackers are now selling it to anyone who can use their personal information so that they can start draining the victim's financial funds.

One example is Linkedin, which is a business-oriented social media website. It seeks to provide a networking center for professionals, recruiters, sales representatives, and technical support personnel. This social media web service allows access to any legal, business, and professional services to facilitate any individual who are seeking for a job, sales, and building networks. There are more professionals and business owners that are registered to Linkedin than any other social media websites, making it suitable for hackers to penetrate personal information to all users of the site. As of 2012, their initial attempt was successful enough to exploit confidential details of its members.

Once that your personal information will be already breached, this is the time for you to take necessary actions that would help to solve your problem. Retrieving information or exposed personal detail is very hard to mitigate, especially when you have little knowledge about the scenario to explain more about the actions that would help to retrieve your personal information. So these are the ways to help you retreive or protect your information.

Safety facts to do immediately if your social media account is hacked

1. Change your password immediately: After being informed that your profile or whole account has just been compromised, it is time for you to change your access information. Changing your username and password is the most important key to block hackers on penetrating your personal information. Changing passwords blocks the main pathway for cyber criminals to exploit your information.

2. Change your username: It is best to include your username when changing your passwords. Most users only consider changing their passwords and not their usernames. As a result, they are still vulnerable because hackers still know their usernames. Hackers have already installed copying software to obtain information basing from the usernames used by the account holders of their personal social media such as Linkedin, Facebook, or Google plus.

3. Change your email: Hackers usually base your contact email whenever you are going to change your username and password. The most important thing to know is that changing contact email can successfully push away hackers from getting into your personal accounts in the future. This includes changing your email by replacing it with another service provider so that hackers will not easily track back your personal information whenever they are going to start copying information of bulk accounts from one social media.

4. Change your contact number: Contact numbers are the fastest way to know if your account has been already compromised. They can alarm you if someone has been already penetrating your username or password. You can either immediately report to your service provider that the person accessing your account is not you or you can just ignore it if it was you. Phone numbers are the best way to urgently change passwords, usernames, and any personal information to prevent your account from being hacked.

5. Rename your account name: It is important to change your account's alias so that hackers will not notice that you are the same person using the account. Nick or alias is an important identity that hackers need to know before they are going to obtain personal information to any account that they want to obtain. They will assume that you are a new user with different name, which could lure them away from your account.

6. Replace your photos: Photos are great memory enhancers. They provide sensory stimulus so that hackers can still remember you by just looking at some of your photos. Replacing it with non-facial or non-selfie portraits prevents hackers or any compulsive sneakers to penetrate your personal information online.

7. Rename all your personal details: To make your account looks like a new account, you should change everything that was previously placed on your account details. This is to prevent hackers to revisit your personal account as they can penetrate your personal information online. Changing every detail will make you being bypassed by hackers because they are presumptive that your account is just an ordinary account.

8. Remove all confidential information: It is important to remove sensitive information such as your bank details. This is the most important detail where hackers are looking for in each account. Bank details are the most important thing to collect any financial related data that can be transferred to their personal accounts. Examples are credit card details and bank account numbers to prevent any intruder to exploit it.

9. Make your profile private: For you to keep your account from the public arena, it is important to make it in a private mode at all times. If you share information such as chatting with other members, make sure that they are your real friends and not just random strangers. Your posts should only be visible to your friends and not in public.

10. Delete account: This is the most effective way to ensure that you will no longer be vulnerable online. Deleting your social media account is the best way to keep your private information vulnerable to the public eye. In this way, hackers will no longer access to any of your information because you no longer have one online. It will make you feel at ease because you are no longer risking your security online.

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