Are social media influencers equipped to dodge cyber attacks?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. When YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia’s (@beerbiceps) YouTube account, with a combined following of 17.33 million subscribers, got hacked on 25 September, he feared for his career. "Cyber security is a real threat, be serious about it...This is what crime looks like in the modern day," he said in a statement.
A study by cyber security firm Kaspersky says that 20% of Indian internet users fell prey to cyber threats in the first half of 2024. In fact, most hackers get access via social media footprint. While YouTube helped Allahbadia retrieve his account within a day, this incident raised serious concerns for the content creator community in India.
How can influencers prevent cyber attacks? The creator community's go-to steps for cyber protection are enabling two-factor authentication, a security method that requires two different ways to verify a user's identity, and limiting access points of the official accounts to a few secure devices. Google, which owns the video-sharing platform, said that as of February 2022, more than 2 million YouTube creators have embraced two-step verification, resulting in a 50% decrease in accounts being compromised. Tech creator Dhananjay Bhosale, who has over 1 million subscribers across social media platforms, told Mint that he uses a physical device called Titan Key by Google for two-factor authentication to minimize cyber risks.
The key allows him and his team to verify their authenticity and access his accounts. "Cyber safety is paramount to secure the content you have worked hard on and posted over the years. Any creator who has not turned on the two-factor authentication is digging up his own grave," he emphasised.
Read more on livemint.com
