Instagram tells users how to keep their accounts safe and secure

News
By Oliver Haslam
published

Instagram profile with pronouns
Instagram profile with pronouns (Image credit: Luke Filipowicz / iMore)

What you need to know

  • Instagram's new Security Checkup is a new feature designed to help people keep their accounts safe.
  • Users will be able to confirm all log-in details are current as well as enable other security measures.

Instagram has announced a new feature that is designed to help users keep their accounts safe. Security Checkup gives users the information they need to make sure their accounts can't be compromised while ensuring that all of their login details are correct.

Announced via a blog post, the new feature that users can access via the Instagram app.

Today, we're launching Security Checkup, a new feature to help people keep their Instagram accounts secure. Security Checkup will guide people, whose accounts may have been hacked, through the steps needed to secure them. This includes checking login activity, reviewing profile information, confirming the accounts that share login information and updating account recovery contact information such as phone number or email.

Users will also be guided through additional security checks and features including two-factor authentication and more. The blog post also reminds people that Instagram will never send them a DM, and any that are said to be from it or Facebook are fake.

Over the past few months, we've seen a rise in malicious accounts DMing people to try and access sensitive information like account passwords. They may tell you that your account is at risk of being banned, that you are violating our policies around intellectual property, or that your photos are being shared elsewhere. These messages are often scams and violate our policies. Instagram will never send you a DM.

There are some good security practices discussed in the blog post and it's worth a read for anyone who has concerns about their account and its security. We also have a two-factor authentication guide that explains how to set it up for all of your favorite apps and services, too.

Instagram is one of the best iPhone apps for sharing your photos and video online and keeping it secure is important. It's good to see Instagram giving people the tools they need to make sure they can do that.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.