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How to protect your Instagram account and personal photos from prying eyes.

Accounts in social networks, especially the ones with a lot of followers, are a tasty morsel for cybercriminals — and hacking them is even easier if they’re poorly protected. That’s why we regularly remind you to beef up your account security as far as the settings permit.
 

• Setting up privacy and security of your Instagram account
  • Most helpful security settings in Instagram
    • Changing your Instagram password
      
    • How to set up two-factor authentication in the Instagram app
      
    • How to check whether an e-mail you received from Instagram is genuine
      
    • Where to find the list of apps and websites connected to your Instagram account
      
  • Most helpful privacy settings in Instagram
    • How to make your Instagram account private and edit followers list
      
    • How to set up who can see your Instagram stories
      
    • How to get rid of spam comments on Instagram
      
    • How to block spam in Instagram’s direct messages and keep from being added to random groups
      
    • How to hide your activity status on Instagram
      
    • How to hide from specific users
      
    • How to stop unwanted push notifications in the Instagram app
      
• Don’t forget to configure accounts in other social media
  

Most useful Instagram security and privacy settings

Unfortunately, security and privacy settings are not always simple to figure out, and developers make things harder by modifying them from time to time. For example, Instagram recently updated its settings. Here are some of the most useful options we recommend to set up.

Configuring Instagram security settings

The new Instagram settings offer more robust protection against unauthorized access to your account and identity theft.

To find the security settings:

* Open your profile.
* Click or tap the three bars in the upper right corner of the screen.
* Select Settings.
* Go to Security.

Password is king

The first rule of security for any account is to set a strong, long, unique password. Attackers will not be able to brute-force it quickly or find it in databases they stole from other sites, which means they will not be able to hack your account. Unless, of course, you give out your password or it leaks from the social network.

How to set up two-factor authentication in the Instagram app

To insure against password leakage, enable two-factor authentication. Anytime someone (including you) tries to log in to your account on a different device, the social network will request a one-time code sent via SMS or generated by a special app. That way, you’ll be informed of all login attempts, and hacking your account without knowing the code is impossible.

To enable 2FA:

* Select Two-Factor Authentication.
* Click or tap Get Started.
* Choose how you want to get codes: receive via Text Message or generate in Authentication App.

Bonus: After you enable this function, the social network will provide recovery codes. The codes help you log in even if the phone on which you receive text messages or use the code-generation app (see here for more details about that option) is not at hand. Make a note of the recovery codes and store them in a safe place.

How to check whether an e-mail you received from Instagram is genuine

Instagram’s developers have figured out a way to protect users from e-mail phishing. The app settings now let you see which messages the social network has sent you over the past two weeks. If you receive a message supposedly from Instagram, but it does not appear in the app, you can confidently mark it spam.

To see which notifications from the social network are genuine:

* Select Emails From Instagram.
* Look for the message in the Security tab if it’s about login attempts, suspicious activity on your account, and so on. If it’s about something else, check the Other tab.
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