Urgent Facebook and Gmail alert as thousands of UK users confirm they’ve been hacked

Anyone with an email or social media account needs to be on high alert and make some changes to their passwords.

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A worrying warning has been issued and you must take notice if you have a social media or email account such as Facebook, TikTok, Yahoo! or Gmail. The alert has been raised by the team at Action Fraud after thousands reported their services had been hacked. Not only that, it’s thought many have since been duped by cyber crooks with over £1.3 million lost to online fraud over the past 12 months.

Action Fraud says that email and social media accounts are now a prime target for hackers and it’s vital that users make some simple but urgent changes to secure their online lives.

"Action Fraud is launching an awareness campaign on social media and email account hacking for Cyber Security Awareness Month this year, encouraging the public to protect their online accounts from fraudsters," the National Fraud & Cyber Crime service said.

One of the biggest mistakes many of us make is using the same password across multiple platforms which makes it far easier for online crooks to take advantage.

"Using the same password for multiple accounts? That means criminals only need to steal one of your passwords to hack into multiple accounts," Action Fraud explained.

If you haven't changed things up then it's a good idea to start using a strong and different password for your email and social media accounts.

One tip offered by Action Fraud is to combine three random words that each mean something to you. That should make it easy for you to remember but much harder for online crooks to hack

For example, you could use your birth month, mixed with your best friend’s name and favourite holiday destination eg. decembersusantenerife. To make things stronger, it’s a good idea to mix in some extra characters, capital letters and numbers eg. D3cember$usantener1fe.

Turning on 2-Step Verification (2SV) for your email and social media accounts is also a good idea as this means new devices won't be able to log into your accounts unless a unique code is punched in via text message.

“Cyberattacks and hacking are carried out by faceless cybercriminals who target unsuspecting victims looking to take advantage of unprotected social media and email accounts," explained Adam Mercer, Deputy Director of Action Fraud.

"With this being the top cybercrime reported last financial year, it’s even more important to take action and ensure you lock down your accounts.

“Protect yourself from fraudsters trying to steal or access your valuable information by ensuring your social media and email account passwords are secure. All your passwords should be different and never shared with anyone else. If you have the option, enable 2-step verification to ensure you have twice the protection for all your accounts.”