More than 400 million selfie lovers can breathe a sigh of relief – Instagram, the social network phenomenon, has revealed that the two-step verification process is soon to be unveiled on its platform.

This means that Instagram accounts will now be better protected by a log-in procedure which should make things harder for cyber-attackers trying to access accounts without permission. With the new two-step procedure, an email address and password will no longer be enough to enter; the user will also need to have the smartphone that the account is linked to.

Facebook, which owns Instagram, already offers the new log-in option, and now the photo platform will boast it, too. Every person that has an account on Instagram can now link it to a telephone number, ensuring an extra layer of security.

So, every time that someone (even the account owner) tries to access the account from a new device, the social media platform will send a code to this telephone number. Without this code it will be impossible to access the account.

This new feature will be rolled out progressively, so soon all users that are worried about their security will be able to enter their telephone number and avoid cyber-attackers accessing their accounts and eliminating photos or using the account for malicious means.

Caution on Instagram

This new security measures comes not long after the platform put its own users’ privacy at risk. When it introduced a new feature, the ability to manage various accounts from the same device, there were serious security issues unearthed.

A bug meant that some users could see notifications belonging to other accounts that shared the device. This highlighted that having the same Instagram account synchronized on different devices meant that different users could see messages, notifications, and even like other photos.

Despite this flaw being fixed, what is certain is that internet users must always take care when sharing information and should be aware of their privacy online.

Thus, the two-step verification process on Instagram is a step forward in terms of security and should protect users the same way as Facebook, Microsoft, and Google already do. Even though new verification techniques are being worked on (such as the ones created by a group of investigators at the ETH Information Security Institute in Zurich), at the moment the best way is to use our personal telephone numbers.

However, it’s just as important to have a two-step verification as it is have secure passwords: they should be long, contain numbers; different cases; symbols, and should be different for each account. To be able to manage the large number of passwords needed today, it’s best to have a password manager just like the one offered by Panda via its different protection packs, which allows you to be in control of different passwords at the click of a button.

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