My twelve year old daughter came home from school the other
day, and I could just tell something was wrong.
So I asked her: hey, Maya, what's wrong?
She said that someone hacked her Instagram account.
Oh, no.
How did that happen?
Apparently, her friend Dana sent her a DM that she's in some
kind of top ten ugly list in school.
I was like: what?
Then she explained that it wasn't actually Dana with someone who
hacked Dana's account and that she clicked on the link in
the DM and tried to log in.
Now her account is hacked, and they're DMing others with
the same message.
She said that almost the entire class was hacked to this
way, but that some were on the beautiful list, and she doesn't
understand why she was on the ugly list.
Man, not only did she get hacked, but it's the first time
she was bullied online.
I had to explain to her that this was totally random done
by a scammer and had nothing to do with her.
You know, kids may think they are ahead of us in technology,
and maybe they are, but emotionally, they are behind.
We need to teach them a lesson about trust.
When online, you just can't trust anyone or anything before
verifying. So here are some tips.
If anyone, including a friend, sends your child a link, game
cheat, free game tokens.
Really, anything that requires you to log in or download
anything, just don't click it.
Many of these links are viruses or scams. Make it a habit
to call or FaceTime the person to verify they actually sent
it. Lastly, turn on two factor authentication.
Go to Settings - Security
Two factor authentication.
This ensures that even if scammers get your kids log in,
they won't be able to take over their account because they
don't have the authentication code.