Steemit Crypto Academy Contest / S7W6 - Careful, Has your Steemit account been hacked?

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As a steemian, there are lots of things you can do to help avoid your account from being stolen or hacked. A few of the things to take into consideration are listed below.

• Don't click on suspicious links: Any link you don't feel comfortable with for any reason, please don't click on it. Ensure that any link you will be clicking is from a trustworthy person on the platform.

• Store keys offline: Please do not for any reason store your keys online because hackers always work with anything that is connected online. So it is recommended you have your keys stored on a piece of paper, an external drive etc.

• Check your account at all times: Another major way to avoid your account being stolen is by checking on your account regularly. If you check your account regularly, and there is any form of power down initiated and you are not the person that initiated them you will know that your account has been compromised. All you need is to hurriedly change your keys.

• Change your password at least every six (6) months: This may sound strange but it is the best way to keep your account very secure. This will also make it difficult for hackers to get to your account since you do an update of your keys as well.

• Change your recovery account immediately if you notice any suspicious: The main way to get our account back if hacked is through the recovery account hence if you notice any malicious behaviour, hurriedly change the recovery account and the password immediately and then you will be safe once again.

• Always keep your device updated: Here, the browsers and every other thing you use to access the account must be kept up to date. In doing so, your asset will be more secure because hacking through your device alone may be very time-consuming and going through your account will in turn be very difficult.

There are many reasons why some accounts get hacked and I will be stating a few of them below.

• Clicking on Phishing links: One of the major ways in which our accounts get hacked is when we click on phishing links. Here, after a user click on such a link, the hacker takes time to deceive the person and then gets their master key and possibly changes it.

• Malware attacks: When our device is affected by some sort of malware, we may not be able to have complete control of our device any longer. Most of this malware is created purposely to steal the assets of users. So as your system is malfunctioning, they will get into it and steal your funds.

• Not keeping our passwords safer: Good passwords shouldn't be something that can be easily memorised and that is why our steemit account password is created in the form it is today. Once these passwords are not properly kept, even our friends can steal our keys and our assets if we are not careful.

There is nothing much to tell those whose account has been hacked. If you notice that your account has been hacked, I suggest you do any or all of the following immediately so that you don't get to lose your assets.

• If your recovery account has not been changed, please change the account immediately and then generate a new key and then stop every process like powering down and wait for the next action of the hacker.

• Communicate with the steemit team through either the SC01/SC02 or contact any of the witnesses so that a quick action to rescue your account will be initiated.

• Always check for updates about the different strategies which hackers use to have assessed accounts and also practice every security measure as to how you will be able to protect yourself. Security is an individual thing hence everyone is responsible for his/her security.

• If you notice any unusual thing, hurriedly chart your superiors on the platform so that they can come to your rescue because the earlier the better. So that is all for those whose accounts have been hacked.