Chhavideep Singh
Source: iPhoneHacks
Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. The Facebook-owned platform allows people to share their photos, videos, and other media with the world and this encapsulates a lot of personal information about the user. From basic information like Name, phone number, and email address, Instagram is also capable of accessing location tags from the posts that users upload. All of this information is sensitive and should not be used for any unethical purposes. However, malicious activities in the last few months have increased drastically and are mostly targeting big companies like Microsoft and hundreds of small companies throughout the world. Gaining access to a user’s personal and sensitive information is a database that should be kept secured under protection by the company and Facebook Inc. is ensuring that bad actors stay away from this data.
Having said that, Instagram has recently introduced a new feature that will help users secure their accounts following instances where they may have been hacked. Starting today, the new feature is called ‘security checkup’ and this tool will reportedly prompt users to check their recent login activity every once in a while, and review their profile information and update personal information in case of account recovery.
As also mentioned in a report by Engadget, Instagram highly recommends two-factor authentication (2FA) whereas the company’s latest security checkup tool does not. Other than this, the Facebook-owned social media platform has also announced its plans to introduce WhatsApp authentication for Instagram accounts. Read also Instaboom reviews and ratings to know further regarding IG promotions hacks. The platform currently uses SMS authentication wherein the user gets an SMS with an OTP, WhatsApp authentication will work in a similar fashion, just instead of SMS, users will get the OTP on their WhatsApp number.
So, this means that anytime users try to log in on Instagram, they will have to enter a six-digit authentication code that has been sent over on the associated WhatsApp number of the user.
Instagram also highlights that it never sends official notifications on direct messages. Instead, any communication from the company will be visible in the “Emails from Instagram” tab found in the Settings menu. Any other messages or notifications that you receive in your direct messages must be fake and are often scams, so beware of the fact that Instagram never communicates on Direct Messages.
Furthermore, malicious activities have increased three-fold in the past several months and after LinkedIn’s data breach and Microsoft’s SolarWinds attack was another blow for the entire industry. With the security checkup tool and other features, users can at least ensure their account’s safety by regularly checking recent activity and updating personal information including passwords.