Last week my account – @bridal_vogue– that has nearly 200k followers and that I’ve put blood, sweat and tears into for 4 years was hacked and was effectively held hostage. I’m also going to say that having The Media Socialites, I always make sure my clients have all protections in place, but prioritized them over me. I’m going to Terrentino this for you a bit and let you know that I have it all back, but the reason why I’m sharing this with you is to learn how you can protect yourself.
If we have been friends for a while, you know that I wake up, work out and keep it moving early. I did exactly that and flipped it to @bridal_vogue, when my heart sunk. “User not found”. Like what? Don’t panic Persephone, IG has been glitchy and crazy. Let’s investigate. I do a search on my other page and sure enough “user not found”. Feeling like the air has been socked out of me, I woke Eddie up and we emailed Instagram and tried to reset my password, but OH WAIT. I received a notification saying my email address had been changed at 1am to something unrecognizable and not by me. That meant every time we hit reset my password it came back with a broken link error because, well nothing was the same.
An overwhelming feeling of sinking came over me. How the FUCK did this happen?
As I’m loosing my mind, eddie emails our hacker who provided his info to us unknowingly [or knowingly] when he changed my email address and overtook the account. I’ll be honest I thought negotiating with a hacker was worthless but eddie was desperate for solutions.
We received a message back as if waiting for us. He wanted money over bitcoin wired now and then he promised to return it. Eddie was intensely going back and forth with our hacker, wired the money and he released it back. No pictures changed except my main image, completely unscathed. I sobbed. I started @bridal_vogue when I was creatively stuck at work and mentally depressed from our struggles in infertility. Everyday sharing and spreading beauty, happiness and my 2 cents on planning your wedding. In an instant it could’ve vaporized and I left feeling violated and exposed like someone had just walked in our house and had taken our dog.
3 Ways to Prevent Social Media Hacks
The only thing I could think of was I had to share this experience and pray that it doesn’t happen to you, so here are 3 ways you can protect yourself from having the same happen.
Two-Step Authentication: Open up your phone. If you don’t know what this is, you need to open up your phone immediately. Think of this as an alarm system for your Instagram. Here we go:
- Tap the profile button in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
- Tap the gear icon near the top-right corner of the screen.
- Under “Account,” tap “Two-Factor Authentication.”
- Tap the toggle next to “Require Security Code.”
- Tap “Turn On” in the confirmation window that appears.
If you set up two-factor authentication, you’ll be asked to enter a special login code or confirm your login attempt each time someone tries accessing Instagram from a device we don’t recognize.
Don’t Have Your Dog As Your Password: I mean we all have done it, but make your password really f-ing hard okay? Numbers, letters, all the things and change it every other month. It’s not a joke.
If You Get A Weird Message DO NOT CLICK THE LINK: After the fiasco of last week, this mother f-er kept trying again. I got a weird message on Whatsapp saying I was in violation of Instagram policies and I needed to click the link. I know y’all are smart people, but sometimes getting random messages we react and don’t think. So… please dear lord don’t click that link!
I’m now in lock-down mode, so if you have tips and tricks I need to know about.. TELL ME.
Till next time
xo
P
P I’m SO SORRY this happened to you. But you know what, now you are better informed to offer this expertise to your clients. Sometimes the worst thing that happens to us offers up the best life lessons. They also happen to be the most expensive. But in the end, you can’t put a price in wisdom. Keep at it!