WHAT TO DO IF YOU‘VE BEEN HACKED

 

WHAT TO DO IF YOU‘VE BEEN HACKED

Nowadays, everyone is vulnerable t the threat of cybercriminals or hackers getting access to your information, but these threats aren’t equal for everyone, getting hacked can be a nightmare. Besides that knowing what to do and how to fix it can help, but knowing how to head off hackers or cybercriminals in the first place is even better. Just face it, our government probably knows everything there is to know about you, and other governments do, too.

Hackers

All these sophisticated threats are mostly faced by a senior politician, CEO, activist, and another highly professional person other than the average person, the average person will likely face fewer sophisticated threats. Mainly high profile figures may be a target with phishing emails that are looking to steal secrets from corporate networks or initiate the transfer of a large sum of money.

Jake Moore, a cybersecurity specialist at Eset, said: “We all like to think we’re not susceptible to social engineering or other kinds of cyberattacks, but the truth is that even self-aware or intelligent people get caught up in online scams that can have very damaging consequences, socially or financially.”

In this COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans or other peoples are working from home, banking from home, attending school from home, and doing anything else. But unfortunately, bad actors are capitalizing upon reality as an opportunity to steal citizen’s personal or private information.

HOW TO KNOW YOU’VE BEEN HACKED?

How do you know if your account has been compromised?

Franklin says, in many cases, it’s pretty obvious and also you can monitor your accounts for suspicious activity, but in the classic scenario, that could include unusual activity on your bank account, but there is a good chance you may also receive an alert from, Facebook, Instagram, Apple, or most importantly Google, that a sign-in attempt has been made on your account. Necessarily, that doesn’t translate to hacked account, but it’s certainly a red flag if those sign-in attempts didn’t come from you.

Hacking

In this condition you should try to reset or lock these accounts if you’ve noticed purchases through your Apple ID account that you don’t recognize, seen sent emails that didn’t come from you, or maybe spotted any other suspicious activity on your accounts that you can also trace, but can’t account for.

Alert financial Institution

Once you have established that something is up with one or a few of your accounts, you should alert the relevant institutions that actually host your account. That means contacting Google, Apple, your banks, and even major credit bureaus.

 Not only this can help to protect you against further damage, or at least serve as a record, but it could also give the organization a heads up that there could be a larger breach at hand. It is a way to not only help others but pay it forward to your future self, too.

Franklin says, “If someone hacked into your account, let the company know—it could be a larger breach”.

 

Change All Your Passwords

Harris Poll Data, 2019, shows that two in three people recycle passwords across accounts and that’s a terrible idea.

Cybersecurity

Franklin says, “Level with yourself: for how many accounts do I use the same passwords?”. While anyone who is involved in a hack should update their passwords for their various websites and apps—not just those that have already been compromised—the serial password recyclers should especially pay attention to this step. Like if your password is “Zypa232#” on your Gmail account and a hacker gets in, here you better believe they’re going to try out that password with your other accounts.

Alert: “stop saving your passwords in your browser, get a password manager”