Top 7 Tips To Prevent Account Takeover That Could Burn Your Business

Account takeovers are an ugly trend that just keeps increasing. Shockingly, they rose 72% between 2019 and 2020 and another 20% between 2020 and 2021.

These statistics are concerning and aren’t showing signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Rather than worrying and waiting around for the day that you get affected by an account takeover, there are actions you can take to empower yourself and reduce the risk that it will happen to you. The truth is, whether you’re a freelancer, a start-up, or a large organization, any kind of online business is vulnerable to account takeovers and it’s important that you protect yourself.

Keep reading to discover our top seven tips to prevent account takeover below.

What Is An Account Takeover (ATO)?

An account takeover is a kind of identity theft or fraud where an unauthorized person obtains someone’s account credentials and sometimes even logs in pretending to be them.

Both individuals and large organizations are vulnerable to account takeovers. Generally speaking, hackers target accounts that are valuable to them, whether that means they contain money or other resources, access to products or services, or have other important information that could be sold.

Some of the most at-risk industries for account takeovers include retail and eCommerce, social media and entertainment, financial services, higher education, and healthcare.

While account takeover can’t always be avoided, there are certain actions you can take for account takeover prevention. Keep reading to find out what they are so you can keep your accounts and private information safe.

1. Use A Fraud Prevention Tool That Can Stop Account Takeovers

There are plenty of fraud prevention tools out there if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution. They’re particularly popular for merchants in industries that deal with customer transactions like eCommerce, retail, and banking. Some of the features fraud prevention tools typically offer include:

• Identity verification
• Data sharing
• Rule-based risk scoring (to flag high-risk transactions)
• Automated risk analysis

Some of the favorite fraud prevention tools are designed for all kinds of online businesses. SEON fraud detection software is a top rated tool in the market for fraud prevention.

2. Be Careful Which Links You Click

This is one of the most important rules of the wild west of the internet, but it bears repeating here. Be mindful of the links that you click. Generally speaking, if a link seems off to you, trust your gut and don’t click it. You never know when a link has been set up by a hacker who’s phishing for your information.

Suspicious links used to be a lot more obvious in the early days of the internet, but hackers are unfortunately getting smarter. Be careful when you receive a link from an unknown sender, an email that contains a link and tons of typos, or a link that looks like it’s from a familiar company but something isn’t quite right.

When in doubt, you can also try Googling any suspicious links that you receive (without clicking on them) to collect community feedback and see if anyone has reported anything similar.

3. Don’t Use The Same Password For Every Account

Most people are guilty of using the same password (or the same couple passwords) for all of their online accounts.

Even though it seems convenient because it’s easier to remember one password than a whole array, doing so puts you at a serious security risk for account takeovers. If you use the same password for all your accounts, a hacker could gain access to a whole array of your accounts in one fell swoop.

In fact, as many as 80% of cyber attacks are due to weak or stolen passwords, so one of the best things you can do to increase your security is create diverse, secure passwords and change them regularly.

You should also choose passwords that are ‘strong’ and not easily guessed. Here are a few general best practices that will help you build strong passwords.

• The more characters the better, but be sure to use at least ten
• Use both uppercase and lowercase letters
• Use both letters and numbers
• Include special characters like !, ?, @, #, %

Password management tools can also help you generate secure passwords, but we’ll be talking more about that later.