Your Account Might Be In Danger [Important Security Checks]

[creative_howl]

This is gonna be a long one...

Anyway... so we all know the scammer situation that's going on at the moment right? But that's not what this post is about.

Apparently, they have started hijacking seller accounts to send scam links around. I've seen posts from two level 2 seller accounts being hacked the exact same way within the past 24 hours. I'm gonna link those two posts here for you to see the severity of this:

Post 01
Post 02

TL;DR: Scammers have hacked into a level 2 account, changed the display name to "support" and started sending messages to multiple sellers with their scam links. Fortunately account owner noticed this and changed their password, and sent messages to the people who received the spam messages warning them not to click the link (which was pretty awesome on his part. Kudos to you for doing that). 

Now the fun part is that their accounts have gotten suspended, even when they had nothing to do with this. I'm sure that their accounts will be reinstated by CS after an investigation. But let's try to avoid that kinda fun and make sure the following security checks are completed to make sure that this won't happen to you.

1. Change your password and/or use a strong password:

If your password is "password", it's time to change it to something that's difficult to guess. Eg: Z[axCQ$%y08Ed+p[%CNS 
The example password above contains characters that are upper and lower case / numbers / special characters ($#@ etc.) and is lengthy. Which is what you want. 

 

2. Additional Authenticators:

a. Make sure two factor authentication is activated, and working. You can do this by simply logging out of your account and logging in again.
b. Check and make sure that you have completed phone verification.
c. Make sure that you have a security question in place so that you can login to your account by yourself in case you get locked out of your account in the future.

 

 

3. Connected Devices

Check and verify that the connected devices to your account. Here you can see if any unknown devices are logged into your account. You can use this page to revoke access to any unknown devices if you see any.

 

 

4. Preview links before you click them anywhere on the internet

First of all, make a habit of previewing all links before you click them. Dangerous links can come in any shape or form. If someone is desperate enough, they might even pose as a genuine client, get work done with you, get you to click on a dangerous link, pay, leave a review, and go. You wouldn't even know how your account got hacked. So make sure that you always ALWAYS check whether the link is pointing to before you click it (I have seen a fair amount of spam links being posted on this forum as well). 

This is how you do it: 

 

 

In case you didn't understand what happened here, I hovered my mouse pointer on top of the "Forum" link, and the exact destination of that link was shown to me in the bottom left corner of my web browser. Any mainstream web browser should have this feature (I'm using Google Chrome here in case you were wondering).

 

5. Use the Fiverr Mobile App

I'm sure everyone is using the App. But in case you are not, maybe it's time to consider start using it. You can use this to easily monitor your account on the go from time to time to make sure there isn't any weird activity in your account. 

Here are some settings you might wanna get yourself familiar with if you're using this app for the first time:
 

 

 

 

6. IRL

Most people forget this. You need to make sure that you're not exposing any sensitive account information to anyone you might be hanging out with in real life (friends, co-workers, girl friends / boy friends / cats etc.). Social engineering is a key part of most "hacks". 

 

Alright... so I think I covered everything you can do to safeguard yourself while using Fiverr. However, you might still be susceptible to a potential hijack in case your web browser gets hacked while browsing other "totally legit websites". I'm sure most of you are already aware of the things I covered in this post. But I thought I would write about this anyway as not everyone here might not be "internet savvy".

So I would suggest using a dedicated web browser just for Fiverr to keep yourself extra safe.

Final remarks: Avoid clicking on links as much as you can. Try to be as vigilant as you can. If something feels odd, or too good to be true, it probably is.
And most importantly: Please don't get hacked and give these ******** the satisfaction of ruining your work. 

Good luck!

[Kesha]

Such great information! Thanks for sharing with the community. 💚