Tips to Keep Your Twitter Account Secure

There is always a chance for your account to be hacked or data to be breached. Yes, cybersecurity is very well developed and well equipped to handle most of the potential threats. But there are still chances of a breach in the security by external threats. The best you can do to keep your account secure is by taking all the right measures from your side. Because a simple click on a third-party link or a single response to a phishing tweet can land your Twitter account in trouble. To avoid this, there are a few common healthy practices for you to adhere to. A few important practices to be followed are,

Enable two-factor Authentication

The days of single authentication are well and truly over. Accounts having single authentication are easier to be hacked. A Microsoft study conducted in 2019 states that accounts with two-factor authentication are 99.99 percent safe against automated cyber-attacks. The chances of anyone cracking your password and having access to the passcode you will receive on the mobile or email is very rare. This makes your Twitter account very secure. If you have any doubts about setting up your two-factor authentication, follow this Twitter guide on two-factor authentication.

Protect your password

People do a lot of common mistakes when creating passwords. Avoid them. Have an uncrackable password. Wonder how your password should be?. Stick to the below guidelines,

• Avoid common passwords and predictable personal information such as birthdate, your car number, etc. 
• Make sure your password has a number and a special character. 
• Do not reuse the same password for your multiple accounts on different platforms. Cracking one account will put all the others in a vulnerable position. A common reason people do not do this is they forget passwords at times. To avoid forgetting the passwords, use one document to store all your passwords and remember the password of that particular document.
• Phrases are a good option for passwords. Combine a few words and form a random phrase. Again, do not use a common phrase, use phrases that only you can recognize.
• Keep changing your password at regular intervals. 
• Do not type your password in any form or in any other place. Not just Twitter, no established website will ask you to enter your password in a form or in a link. So, never input your password other than the login page.

Be careful with links

Utmost care needs to be taken before clicking any link. You will come across a lot of links on Twitter on a daily basis. It could be a shopping product, a game review, or any such links. If you want to open the link, be very sure about the source and the authenticity. Check the profile that posted the link, the website name in the link, and click the link only if you completely trust them. If you feel any third-party links as suspicious, report them. 

There is also one common problem with links, particularly in Twitter. Because of the word limit, most of the Twitter accounts use link shorteners. So, at times you will only see the link shortener address in the tweet and not the exact website’s address. If the tweet’s source is not to be trusted, avoid the link.

Have clear Boundaries

The more open your account is, the more unsafe your account can be. While the boundaries will not be the same for everyone, visit your privacy settings and get your boundaries on point. For instance,

• You can restrict who can tag you in any tweet. A normal user do not necessarily have to allow everyone to tag. Instead, you can restrict it to your followers or only a specific set of followers as per your need. The same goes by for your tweet viewers. You can choose to show your tweets only to your followers.
• Enable your location tracking only if it’s needed. If you are not going to do a purchase on Twitter or if there is no exact reason for you to share your location with Twitter, choose not to share location in settings.
• Restrict your direct message settings. Most often, hackers send you direct messages from unknown accounts. Clicking on the link in the messages can expose your account to them. So, place restrictions on your DMs.

Use OAuth for third-party permissions

There will be scenarios where you will use your Twitter to login in and use other applications for gaming or payment or similar other purposes. While doing so, we grant those third-party applications to access a few features of your Twitter account. We cannot have them misuse any of our information. In order to tackle this problem, Twitter has a service called “OAuth”. “OAuth” is a secure way of connecting with third-party websites. So, always use “OAuth” when connecting to third-party websites.

Conclusion

Above are the common things you need to be aware of to keep your account safe. Always remember to be cautious whenever something doesn’t feel right. If you have any queries about keeping your account safe, write to us in the comments. 

To learn more about every facet of Twitter, read our informative blogs on Twitter.