What to do if you’ve had a social media hack
What is a social media hack?
When someone takes control of your social media account such as Facebook or Twitter. This could mean there are posts on your social media page that you did not make or your content may be deleted.
First steps
- First, try to change the password if you can get into the account.
- If this is not possible, then contact the provider for help. See who to contact below.
- If your Google account has been hacked, this will be more complicated as it may be linked to several accounts. Try to log into your Gmail account to change the password, if you are unable to log in, follow the contact details below.
Who to contact
- Facebook account recovery
- Instagram help
- Gmail account help
- Twitter account help
- Action fraud
Next steps
- Once you have taken back control of your social media account set up two factor authentication to make it more difficult for hackers in the future
- Use a password that is more difficult to hack. For advice about strong passwords, see here.
Follow up
- Facebook enables you to set up login notifications. Go to settings, select ‘security’, then ‘login notifications’ and select either e-mail or text messages to send you an alert when your account is accessed by a computer or mobile that you have not used before. Other types of social media accounts may also offer this service, have a look in your account settings as soon as possible.
- You can also set up two-factor authentication (2FA) within your social media account settings for most forms of social media.