Staying Safe Online: Securing Your Snapchat Account
As part of our ongoing Staying Safe Online series, we want to provide a clear guide for those looking to make their online presence a little more secure. As people continue to share more information about their lives online, these pieces of information can be exactly what a hacker or scammer is looking for. From providing helpful clues during Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) gathering expedition, giving a list of your friends and followers right to a scammer, improperly secured Snapchat accounts can be a treasure trove of information, attract unwanted attention from potentially dangerous people, and even leak private information like your home address.
Our friends over at Studio Sec put together a quick walkthrough on how to improve your Snapchat account security right from your mobile device.
Securing Your Instagram Account from Your Phone/Tablet
Launch the Snapchat app on your mobile device and swipe to your chat list and select the Meatballs (⋯) menu
2. From the Profile menu, select the Settings gear icon
4. Scroll through the Settings menu and select the Two-Factor Authentication option.
5. Within the Two-Factor Authentication area you can configure your multi-factor authentication settings.
When enabled, Snapchat will ask for an additional security code (sent via Text Message or generated via an Authentication App) that will required before a login can be performed. This prevents an unauthorized user from accessing your account, even if they know your username and password.
6. Scroll through the Settings menu and select the Profile Settings option.
7. Within the Profile Settings area you can also find various interaction options that determine how others interact with you on the platform including the following:
Contact Me- The ability to determine who can send you chats, snaps, and voice messages.
See My Location - The ability to choose who can view your location and location history on the Snap Map.
See Me In Quick Add - The ability to choose if your profile can appear in the Quick Add search for those who share mutual friends.
Family Center - The ability to connect a parent account to those of their children. Parents can have the ability to see their child’s friend list, contacts from the past 7 days, and report abuse or safety concerns.
Now What?
After walking through the steps to secure your Snapchat account, it is still important that you remain aware of what you’re posting and who you are connected with. Malicious actors such as scammers and hackers will often create fake profiles and try to connect with you in order to learn as much as they can about you and your friends. By following the guide above as well as being more aware of what information you put online, you can stay safe online and limit your chances of falling victim or an online attacker. Be wary of accounts that have a high snapscore but have a generic/random username and no Bitmoji as this can often indicate an in-authentic/bot account. Additionally, be caution when messaging accounts that mention giveaways or free products as these are often techniques used by scammers and malicious users to steal your personal information and even your account passwords. Finally, on social applications like Snapchat it’s important to remember that not everyone will try to connect with you for the right reasons. Some people may try to seek out explicit pictures/conversations or participate in malicious behavior such as grooming and it is critical to be aware of how to respond and what tools are available should you encounter this behavior.
If you have other social media accounts, make sure to check out our other Staying Safe Online guides as we walk through how to secure your accounts on sites like Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and more!