Socials have gained importance in our lives, and it's important to keep them safe to avoid unpleasant situations: here's Instagram's Security Checkup
Instagram has recently launched the Security Checkup, which aims to increase the security of the accounts that populate the platform. In the press release with which the social announced it, it is stated that Security Checkup "will guide people whose accounts may have been hacked through the necessary steps to protect them".
With the growing importance of social networks, it has become more and more frequent in fact the practice for which malicious people are able to "pierce" the accounts to enter and take possession of them, to use them for the most disparate purposes. It has often happened that more or less followed accounts have been hacked, and that the legitimate owners have been contacted for what can be defined as a real ransom demand. A sort of "you pay me or you'll never see your account again". So Instagram, in order to curb these practices, not even to say illegal, has created the Security Checkup that involves the owners of an account that had previously been compromised, which was asked to start a Security Checkup, or literally a Security Check.
Security Checkup, what it consists of
The Security Checkup, in other words, is a guided procedure in which the social "takes by the hand" the user, targeted to those profiles that may have been hacked. The procedure consists of checking login activity, reviewing profile information, confirming accounts that share login information, and updating contact information for account recovery, such as phone number or email address.
Through the Security Checkup Instagram also recommends enabling strong two-factor authentication, often summarized as 2FA. This way, the user receives an alert whenever someone or the owner himself tries to access the account from an unseen device, i.e. different from the one from which he usually logs in, so as to have an additional confirmation that it is the legitimate owner of the account who is attempting to log in.
The strong two-factor authentication of Instagram is done via SMS and authentication app, but also via a message on WhatsApp thanks to the synergy between the platforms same group, in the specific case of Facebook of which both Instagram and WhatsApp are part.
Security Checkup, why
Instagram thought of the Security Checkup after noticing that in recent times there would have been a surge in the number of malicious people who tried to contact other users pretending to be an employee of the platform to push them to hand over their password in order to access the social, unfortunately often succeeding.
At that point the situation is compromised almost irretrievably, because having username and password you can take possession of an account and the owner is at the mercy of the attacker and his possible requests. So Instagram, in addition to the Security Checkup, has warned that it only sends emails that can be verified through the appropriate section in the app settings.