Instagram is one of the most popular social platforms for young people, kids. This blog post applies to everyone but it’s meant for parents/guardians to focus on their kid’s account security.
Instagram is a photo-sharing app with live stream capabilities, comments, messaging, and other fun features kids love. Sharing, especially in the last year of isolation, is the primary reason for Instagram’s popularity. However, it is also open to hacks and attacks like anything else on the internet.
Kids are especially vulnerable to social engineering attacks because they are so naive. They don’t have the real-life experience to develop deep skepticism, cynicism, hesitations or understand that every message and follow request they get is not legitimate.
Whether the account is private or not, their accounts are still at risk of being taken over.
The steps are simple, here’s how you enable it:
First, open the Instagram app on the device and go into settings
Second, go into Security
Third, go into Two Factor Authentication
Lastly, you will see this screen. There are main options, let me explain.
The first option “Authentication App (Recommended)” is for more advanced users and may not be the right fit for young people, however, it is preferred. What this option is, you will use another app like Google Authenticator or Authy (my recommended app) to get the two-factor code.
The second option probably is a better fit which is a “Text Message” that will be sent to the phone registered in Instagram with the code. It’s simpler, easier but not as secure as the top but still exponentially more secure than a username/password alone.
That’s it. Those simple, fast steps will lock your account or your child’s account with multi-factor authentication. That way if they do fall for those types of scams the hackers will not be able to login to account because they will not have access to the second factor which will come from the account owner’s phone.
Two-factor authentication enabled is the easiest and one of the most powerful security improvements you can make on your accounts no matter what they are.
Be aware, be safe.
