Skype is also prone to cyberattacks, did you know? If you use this software to communicate with your customers in your company, you need to increase the level of security of your account. This will prevent unauthorized access. In this article, I will share some tips on how to improve your privacy on Skype.
Cybercriminals, through viruses, access corporate emails, social profiles, and web platforms. Fraudulently they get personal information from network devices.
To increase the security of your Skype account, you can follow these five tips.
1. Use a secure login password
The first thing you need to do to protect your Skype account is to create a secure password.
Below I’ll bring you a few points to create a secure password.
- The minimum length must be 8 characters.
- Text must contain lowercase, uppercase, number, and special characters.
- The text must not contain personal information such as the date of birth.
- The password you create should only be used for one account.
2. Use two-factor authentication
Skype offers the ability to use two-factor access to access your account and make intrusion more difficult. The service can be activated on the Microsoft Security Settings page.
Access to two factors allows you to have a login consisting of two phases:
- identification, the user must enter user and password;
- authentication, the user must enter the code that arrives in the inbox, indicated at the time of creating the account.
- Choose who can contact you.
As in any program or portal where you enter your data, it is recommended to set the access privacy to avoid intrusion by unauthorized users.
To decide who can contact you, go to your Skype account, go to the Privacy section. from the menu and select the Privacy Settings item. Choose who can call you and send you messages. You also decide whether to save your history, which contacts to block, and whether to share your profile data with advertisers.
To decide which personal information to make public and which private information, select the Profile and Edit My Profile item from the Skype menu.
4. Check applications that access your Skype account
To ensure the security of your data and avoid the intrusion of malicious software:
- Enter the Tools menu and the Options section.
- Select the Advanced.
- At the bottom, select the link “Manage access to Skype by other programs” and remove any entries you find dangerous.
5. How can you check the origin of the link
Once you’ve set up the contacts, you can communicate with them. You’ll still need to use some attention. This is because the spread of viruses can occur through the contacts of the address book of an infected user.
A very similar case happened in November this year. The malicious link was “http://www.baidu.com/link?url=w_QPZHv0bXbGCSb5hrfNrF78BaqrfJXO8m1iIlk9o_W#cybypo= [my username on Skype]” and identified the Baidu search engine.
To defend yourself against viruses on Skype, I recommend that you use the following precautions:
- Make sure who the sender is.
The sender doesn’t know he’s infected. It’s good to make sure your contact has sent the link in person.
If you find a link in the chat in a language other than yours, it is good to be wary.
- Use services that tell you the source URL.
Before you click on a link to a received message, you can use a tool that lets you find out which page the shortened URLs lead. This way, you can check that it is not a malicious link. I recommend the “bitly.com” tool. Enter the copied link and click on Bitly to verify the actual destination of the link.
How to increase Skype Account Security: Conclusion
Using authentication on devices or sites has led to increased privacy and security awareness.
In this article, I have indicated four tasks to do to increase the security of your Skype account. Also, this video conferencing software needs to use all possible security measures to prevent and safeguard against potential cyberattacks.
