CYBER SECURITY FOR INFLUENCERS
Episode 2/3
This is part 2 of a series in how to protect your online social media accounts. If you missed our first episode, check out Securing your accounts with strong passwords and MFA. In this second episode, I wanted to highlight a security threat that is not commonly known, but is very important — and I would guess that you will be surprised at the outcome.
REVIEW AND REVOKE ANY UNNEEDED APPS WITH PERMISSION TO YOUR ACCOUNT
This one might actually come to a surprise to you, especially if you have been using your account for a long time. Many times we are asked to connect apps to our social media accounts for various reasons… Could be a photo app, a grammar checker, other social media platforms, or engagement apps. There are literally thousands of applications that offer some sort of value that want to connect to your account. What you might not realize is that when you connect a third-party app to your account, you are granting that app permission to access and possibly use your account on your behalf. Depending on its permissions, an authorized app may be able to access information, such as reading your posts, followers, change your profile, posting on your behalf, accessing your Direct Messages, or seeing your personal information such as name or real email address.
Even if you have chosen a strong, unique passphrase and enabled two-factor authentication it’s possible that your account could be accessed via one of these third party application connections. It is a good idea to review all the third party application access to all of your accounts at least yearly, removing access to any application you do not recognize, trust, or do not use any longer.
Luckily, most social media platforms make it easy to review and disconnect (or de-authorize) any third party applications that you have previously granted access to. This configuration can usually be found in your account settings, under “Security” or “Authorized Applications” sections. Since I did it above, I’ll try my best to make this whole blog post easy for you, and link the authorized applications settings pages for some of my favorite social media platforms here too. If you see any application that you want to remove, just click the “Revoke” or “Disconnect” button associated with the application. This will not remove your account with that third party application, only the access that the application has to your social media account. SECURITY!
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/accounts/manage_access/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications&ref=settings
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/mypreferences/d/data-sharing-for-permitted-services
GOOGLE/YOUTUBE: https://myaccount.google.com/u/1/permissions
Find an application that you didn’t expect to have access to your account? Take a screenshot and tell me about it on Twitter @TRIFIDENT. The first 5 people that post a pic showing an un-expected and removed third party application and tagging @trifident will receive a Sti(ha)cker Pack from SecuriTeeStar (my absolute FAVORITE Hacking Stickers) — Entries are limited to Twitter and LinkedIn as of right now.
Stay tuned for the last episode:
DEACTIVE LOCATION SHARING
UNCOMMON EXPERTISE TO BUILD
EXCEPTIONAL SECURITY PROGRAMS
TRIFIDENT is comprised of professionals with real-world experience spanning US Government, Fortune 200, and critical infrastructure cyber operations. We value expertise, professionalism, customer service, and discretion above all else. Our goal is to partner with you to understand your specific needs, assess your cyber threat profile, and then develop with you a cybersecurity strategy to reduce risk that fits within your corporate or personal lifestyle.