Safeguard your Twitter account with these two minute tips

With Twitter account hacks on the rise with Vice President of Indian National Congress, Rahul Gandhi and Congress' accounts itself being subject to malicious attacks here are a few tips to safeguard your account.

Use of a ‘verification code’ in Twitter to ensure that it is really you will require you to provide your phone number or email id, as each time you login the account will send a code to your phone or email which will be required to Tweet.  

If say a group of people are using the same Twitter account to publish tweets, then logging out of the respective Twitter accounts from time to time could be a basic step.

A Twitter app would also be preferable to allow contributors in a group to Tweet from your company, school, team or respective political party.

A few other tips made available by Robert Siciliano, Identity Theft Expert are as follows:

1. Use a strong password.

2. Protect your Tweets from the eyes of the public if you wish.

3. Watch out for suspicious links, and always make sure you’re actually on Twitter.com before you enter your login information.

4. Never give your username and password out to untrusted third parties, especially those promising to get you followers or make you money.

5. Make sure your computer and operating system is up to date with the most recent patches, upgrades and anti-virus software.

6. Beware of phishing. Phishing is when someone tries to trick you into giving up your Twitter or email username and password, usually so they can send out spam to all your followers from your account. Often, they’ll try to trick you with a link that goes to a fake login page.

7. Beware of typosquatting or cybersquatting. Typosquatting, which is also known as URL hijacking, is a form of cybersquatting that targets internet users who accidentally type a website address into their web browser incorrectly. When users make a typographical error while entering the website address, they may be led to an alternative website owned by a cybersquatter.

8. Beware of short urls. Before you click on shortened URLs, find out where they lead by pasting them into a URL lengthening service, such as URL Expanders for Internet Explorer and URL Expanders for Firefox.

9. Use aVPN (Virtual Private Network). Protect your private information and sensitive data from snoopers and hackers while surfing the web at WiFi hotspots, hotels, airports and corporate offices with Hotspot Shield VPN’s WiFi security feature.

10. And last but not least, limit the number of people that have access to your account.