How to Protect Your Instagram Account

If you’re looking for a way to protect Instagram account, you’ve come in the right place.

Being a valuable source of money, Instagram accounts are under attack by hackers. The cracked Instagram user might suffer a whole lot of consequences: from being subscribed to accounts they didn’t planned to subscribe to losing their job and memories.
To prevent this from happening, let’s discover how to protect your Instagram account.

Instagram Account Protection: Common Tips

Make sure your Instagram passcode is strong

Instagram passcode shouldn’t be simple. This may sound obvious to profound users of the Internet, but there still are a lot of cases when a password is stolen by simple guessing. Passcodes like “1234567890” and “qwerty” are not a rare thing; therefore a quick reminder is a must.

To pick a strong password, try to use something unrelated to you or your family. Your birth date and the name of your dog are out of the options, because these things are easily found online. A new “friend” in your DM (i.e. direct messages, a way to send private messages in Instagram) who shows genuine interest in your private information might be a hacker who is “social fishing” for intel that will help them to crack your passcode.

To be considered strong, a passcode should be around nine digits long, include numbers, upper case and special symbols like exclamation point (!), question mark (?), ampersand (&) and others. Random sequence of symbols and numbers is the best way to create a strong unbreakable passcode.

After you generate a great password, make sure to remember it well or to write it down in your secret passcode storage. It is possible to recover Instagram passcode, but you really don’t want to go through this trouble, do you?

Useful note! If you have a Google Account, while using Google Chrome to register an account on a website, Google Services might suggest you a randomly generated passcode. This passcode is hard to remember, so it’s assumed that Google Services would save it for you in its database.

The downside of this method is that if your Google Account is stolen, all of your Google-suggested passcodes will be stolen too. On the other hand, Google protection services have very high standards so you can rely on this solution. Nobody can have your Instagram password if it is unknown even to you.

Turn on two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication on Instagram is an extra layer of defense against hacking and it is rightfully considered one of the best methods to protect your account, being it Instagram or else.

Using this method when you login to the website or the app from an unknown device, the security system will ask for password and additionally will send you a secret randomly-generated code. Without this code entered, nobody, even if they have retrieved your passcode somehow, will be able to access your account.

Instagram security options provide two step authentication. It offers you to choose either of two options: to get text messages (SMS) from your mobile phone or use login codes from third-party authentication apps. Choosing one of this options makes your Instagram account much safer. Learn also how to set up 2-step authentication for your Google Account.

Make your Instagram account private

Public Instagram accounts are often beneficial for public people and for those who plans to use their account to make business or share art. If you aren’t one of these categories, you might consider making your account private. Private Instagram account means that your photos and videos will only be available for those who you approve of. No annoying likes from advertisement accounts and no strangers wandering around your media. This way you can post your private information and no one will see it but your friends, family and people you trust.

How to find privacy setting on Instagram? Go to your profile (click/tap the “person” icon). Select “Privacy and Security” then “Account Privacy”. There would be an option to click/toggle “Private Account” on. When it’s done, only your current followers would have access to your posts. Others will have to send requests to do so.

Make sure your email is protected

This simple advise can help you to protect your Instagram account from hackers. Everyone who has access to your email can ask for a password recovery and change your Instagram account passcode. To prevent this from happening, use tips about Instagram passcodes from above and never give anyone you don’t trust your email password.

Be careful with third-party apps

Mobile users can give access to their Instagram accounts by allowing certain apps to modify their Instagram profiles. Some of those apps might be quite dangerous to give such permissions as those apps may collect your passwords and send them to their developers. It’s best to keep your Instagram account away from any third-party apps, but if you need to, ascertain that this app is safe to use an no one had any problems with it before.

To check or revoke access to apps that already have it, go to the website or mobile version, click on the gear icon, find “Access data” and click on “Revoke access” for every app you suspect in data stealing. This will help you to track third-party app connected to your Instagram.

Never, ever give your passcode to people you don’t know and don’t trust

Seriously, don’t. Administration and security team would never ask for your account password, they already have it encrypted in their database. Anyone who claims to be an admin is probably a lazy hacker digging for an easy target. Don’t let them deceive you, always ask for solid proof or better report a user that tries to get your passcode by pretending to be an authority figure.

Learn also what to do if someone made a fake Instagram profile of you - Someone created a fake Instagram account with my pictures