Social media accounts have finally become a major target for a lot of various online criminals. Most people are now in the habit of putting their whole lives on their social media.
Apart from the lack of privacy that this lifestyle causes to people, this behavior has now made social media accounts a gold mine for hackers and scammers.
Most peoples’ social media now contain personal details that could cause a lot of trouble for the owners if it ever get s in the hands of hackers.
Hackers would try to steal people’s personal identification so that they could pretend to be other people and then buy things using these innocent people’s identity. Scammers would also use social engineering to try to trick people into giving them goods or even money.
This trend has really become a cause for worry because most often than not, people actually fall victim to all these scams. A lot of people have lost a fortune to scammers and hackers who deceive them and run away with money and other valuables.
Some people might feel a platform like Instagram is relatively safe from this type of menace since it is just a platform meant for posting pictures.
But anyone that is familiar with how social media works would know this school of thought is far from the truth. Hackers would usually target people’s social media accounts because, realistically, they are just like a doorway into the person’s entire online life. The Instagram app has actually been hacked before and even more than once.
Most times, when the Instagram app as a whole is hacked, a whole lot of accounts get affected. This type of hacker typically looks to get people’s personal information, like their birth date, the answers to their security questions, or other personal stuff like that.
The reason why they are keen on getting information like this is so that they can use the details they get to hack into other online accounts of people.
It is one thing to be hacked, and you know your account has been compromised, but it is a totally different ball game if your account has been hacked, and you have absolutely no idea.
This is the most dangerous condition because you would continue using your account as normal, and yet the hacker would be getting more and more information about your whole life. All this information would be piled up and used to carry out their own nefarious plans.
There are actually several ways you can employ to figure out if your account has been hacked, but one of the methods I personally vouch for is checking your login history on Instagram.
When you use this method, you would be basically able to keep track of your account by checking your login history every now and then.
This login history would help you to know when and where, and on which device your account has gotten logged in overtime.
So now the question is, how can you see your login history on Instagram? If you are really worried that someone else might have been using your Instagram account without you being aware, all you need to do to give yourself peace of mind is to check your login history. You can check the login history on both your desktop and your mobile device.
How You Can Check Your Instagram Login History On Your Desktop.
If you want to check your login history on your desktop, all you have to do is just:
- Log into Your Instagram account.
- Then go to your Instagram profile.
- Then you click the setting icon that looks like a cog on the upper right-hand side that would be next to your name and also the edit profile button.
- Then you can click on the login activity that would be on the left-side sidebar.
- You can then click to open each notification that is still active to be able to see a map of your general location.
- Once you have seen these locations, you would be able to track where and when your account was logged in.
- If you notice any strange location or a strange time that you are not familiar with, that would probably mean that someone else is using your account.
How You Can Check Your Instagram Login History on Your Mobile Device
If you want to check your login history on your mobile device, you would have to:
- Open the Instagram app on your mobile device.
- Then you should log into your Instagram account.
- Then you have to go to your Instagram profile.
- And then, you have to click on the menu icon at the top right side of your screen.
- Then you can click on the settings options from the list of the available choices.
- Then you should choose Security from the settings menu.
- You are meant to select Login Activity to be able to view your most recent logins done on your account.
- If you notice any strange location or a strange time that you are not familiar with, that would probably mean that someone else is using your account.
Once you make checking your login history a habit, you would be really sure and confident that your account is safe and secure.
You would be able to easily sense if your account has been compromised, and you would be able to get ahead of any hacker that is trying to sneak into your account.
There are several other ways you can use to figure out if your account has been compromised, and most times, they also work effectively.
One major way is to look out for unusual activity on your Instagram. If the goal is to be sure whether someone has hacked your Insta account or not, you would have to really pay attention to the activities that are going on in your account.
This basically means that you would have to pay attention to all the posts or direct messages that are being sent from your account.
The biggest sign that there is another person using your account is when you start to see some account activities that are not yours.
These activities are not necessarily specific in any way. It could actually range from uploads you do not recall publishing, or followers you do not recognize approving if your account is a private one, or even accounts you are following and you do not recall following.
It can even include messages you did not send or even messages that you are receiving from people you are not familiar with.
The truth is that it is actually possible you just simply forgot about some actions you made on your Instagram account, but then if you notice a post that you are completely sure you did not publish or even a picture you are extremely sure you did not snap, then right then and there you have already gotten your certain confirmation that your account has been compromised.
Another observation you would need to be careful about is if you start getting emails from Instagram about changes you never made.
The fact is that if you make a request to have a change made to your Instagram account, the site will send you an email to your address of record in order to verify the change you wish to make.
If you ever notice or see one or more of these types of emails and yet you have not tried to make any changes to your account, then you just have to know that your account has been hacked.
The moment you notice any email that looks like this, you would really need to make a move as quickly as possible in order to ensure you secure your account.
This basically means you should immediately change your password on Instagram and as well as other accounts that use that same password too.
You must not leave any of your social media accounts with a password that has been compromised already. This is because, more often than not, hackers do not target only one platform but rather try to use details gotten from one platform to access other social media platforms that belong to the unsuspecting user.
You must not follow any link that you get in the mail that comes from these types of actions because it could very well be a phishing attempt.
Phishing is actually the sneaky act of trying to get personal data from unknowing victims by getting them to fill in details as though they were filling a legit form, report, or document.
The appropriate thing to do would be to log into Instagram directly and then try to secure your account by changing your password.
What if you are not able to access your email at the moment? There is still a lesser-known method you could use if you are not able to access your email as to when you want to.
Instagram has its own email feature that allows you to check the mails Instagram has sent you right there in the app. Just using settings, and you would be able to see exactly what information the social media company has sent you.
All you just have to do is click on the Settings, and when you click on Emails from Instagram. This feature will let you know immediately if you have missed any security emails from the company, even when you cannot receive or access your mail at that moment.
Another way to know if anyone has been messing with your account is for you to view your past Instagram account activity.
This feature is also one of the lesser-known tracks on Instagram. With this feature, you can actually be able to go over all of your previous account activity.
All you need to do is to go under settings, and then you can select Privacy and Security. Once you are done, then you can click on Account Data.
This would immediately bring up a screen that would be full of various optional pieces of information that you could go through.
I would advise that you should take a look at all the password changes and even privacy changes first. The presence of these changes could basically expose any shady happenings that are going on in your account.
How to Secure Your Instagram Account
To a large extent, it is your responsibility as an Instagram user to keep your account secure. You cannot be flimsy or lackadaisical about how you treat the Security of your account.
Unlike some other social media applications, Instagram actually allows the possibility of multiple logins from multiple devices all at once.
This basically means it is possible for you and a hacker to be using your account even at the same time. The fact that you are online currently on your device does not mean the hacker would be blocked out or logged off from your account.
So since the only way to be sure you have been hacked is if you notice unusual activity on your account, then you have to put in even more effort to ensure your account is secure.
- One major and perfectly certain way you can ensure you have secured your account is by changing your password. The way Instagram works is that if you change your password on a device, you would be automatically logged out of all other devices that you had been previously logged on. Anyone who wants to continue using your account on those devices would have to know your new login details and just try to log in to the account afresh. You can already see how this method would save guard you against hacker attacks. The moment you change your password, any hacker that had previously had access to your account would be logged out, and you would regain your privacy again. The steps to change your password is actually not stressful at all :
- First, you would have to log into your Instagram.
- Then you would have to go to the change password option that would be in your account settings.
- You can then type in your already existing password.
- You would have to type and confirm your new password.
- Then you can save your changes by choosing or clicking on change password.
The moment you have followed through with the action of changing your password, be prepared that all your currently active Instagram sessions would be logged out immediately.
This is actually a good thing because if there is anyone sneaking and using your account without your knowledge, such persons would be logged out and would not have access to your account anymore.
If you intend to change your password, just ensure you use a unique and difficult password that would be absolutely unpredictable.
You could also use a password manager to suggest passwords to you. All you have to do is try your best to strike a balance between how difficult it is and how memorable the password is. Typical high-strength passwords usually contain at least eight letters, some numbers, and special characters like @#!.
A rule of thumb is that you must never ever use the same password for all your accounts on various platforms. It could be quite tempting to do this because it actually makes remembering your password and logging in really smooth and easy.
But at the same time, you have to keep in mind that if you use the same passwords for everything, all hackers have to do breach just one account, and then all your accounts are in jeopardy.
Is it possible to know who accessed your account?
The reality of this question is that it is actually very unlikely. The possibility of finding out who was able to get into your account and cause a ruckus is actually slim to none. Of course, you can play the guessing game to try and pinpoint some suspects. But usually, that is all it would ever be; a good old guess.
There is obviously a possibility that there might be a slip up if the hacker happens to be someone you know, and he or she did not cover their tracks properly.
There is also the idea of using the location of the login to try to figure out who did the deed. But then you cannot even rely on locations that easily because any hacker worth their salt would know how to use VPNs to cover up their tracks perfectly.
The best advice would be instead of pondering on who did what, it would be far more beneficial if you just ensured you used a stronger password and ensure you keep this password with more diligence. This would prevent the same mistake from happening again.
Why does your account keep getting hacked?
The first question you really need to ask yourself is if you have ever dealt with third-party apps that typically request you to pay some amount of money so you could get an increase in the number of followers that you already have.
If your answer to this question is yes, then you have to realize that not only could you be in serious trouble with Instagram, you could also have potentially left yourself open and at the risk and mercy of hackers.
If you notice that your account keeps getting hacked no matter what you have tried, you must realize that there is someone that has already gotten access to either your email or your phone number.
The best solution to this kind of problem would be to just change every single piece of personal information you have on the account to something that would be entirely different.
Once you have been able to do this, then you can go to your email and then change the password that is attached to it. You should also set up your two-factor authentication.
The reason why these steps are very important is that realistically if a hacker has access to your email or phone number, there is basically no matter the number of times you change your password, he or she would still have unlimited access to your account.