Pinterest hack

Social Media Hijacking

The mint green blocks in this Pinterest screen shot are the work of a spammer who is hijacking Pinterest accounts to spread a link to a work-at-home scam — I assume it’s a scam, since spamming goes so well with scamming.

In any case, it’s a great example of how easily social media accounts can get hijacked. Read on to discover the #1 easiest way to keep this from happening to you.

I noticed this green block problem because it happened to a former client. The client decided to take care of their social media in-house and, as so often happens, the account got ignored for a few weeks.

When your business is busy, it’s easy to put off updating social media. It doesn’t seem that important, and it doesn’t seem as though it’s been that long since you took care of it, and days turn into weeks.

At that point, you’ve got an abandoned social media account. Pinterest can be set up for access via Twitter or Facebook, so getting into one account can let miscreants into the others as well. All they have to do is choose an account with quite a few followers that’s not being updated. They have access to all the account’s followers, and they can expect to have their pins and posts up for a while before anyone notices.

We see the same thing with comment spam. Abandoned blogs will often become completely infested with Cheap Viagra links.

As you can imagine, it’s a lot less trouble to hijack someone else’s successful social media account than to set up your own. if you don’t mind hacking into other people’s accounts, you have plenty of choice. Many companies start off boldly with social media and find they can’t keep up with it.

It’s the equivalent of leaving your doors open. And just like burglary, this particular crime is a crime of opportunity. If you take care of your social media on a daily basis, you’ll catch any hijacker immediately and remove their pins, change your password, and otherwise foil their plans. Hijackers therefore choose social media accounts that aren’t used regularly for their nefarious plots.

Here’s how to keep your social media from being hijacked: update regularly. Keep an eye on it. If you don’t have time, hire someone to do it for you.

Easy.


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