Social Media Security

Have you changed your social media passwords lately? Have you ever changed them? Considering how much social media hacking there is these days, it’s amazing how careless we are with the most basic aspects of social media security.

Thycotic, a provider of privileged account management (PAM) software, recently polled attendees at a conference in San Francisco, to learn about their security practices.

The company found that 53 percent of users haven't changed their social network passwords in more than one year – with 20 percent having never changed their passwords at all!

"As we know, social networks give away a lot of private information. For people to not consider changing their passwords on a regular basis on their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, they are easily allowing hackers to access information that will grant them access to other facets of their lives, like their work computers and email," said Joseph Carson, Chief Security Scientist at Thycotic.

In 2016 alone, more than 3 billion user credentials/passwords were stolen – making it 95 credentials and passwords stolen every second, according to Thycotic and Cybersecurity Ventures' Password Report.

By 2020, there will be more than 300 passwords to protect and every employee with be responsible for about 90 passwords.

The moral of the story: change your passwords often.