Influencers are vulnerable to hackers and scammers who target their social media accounts. Your YouTube channel is your livelihood, so you need to protect it. Thankfully, there are steps you can take to ensure your channel is safe and secure.

Change your password frequently

The first step to protecting your channel is creating a strong password. Your password needs to be something that won’t be easy to guess. Ideally, your password should be a unique mix of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. However, it’s also important to change your password frequently. This will make it harder for hackers to figure out what your password is and break into your account.

Utilize the channel permissions feature

To keep your password safe, you should never share it with anyone. Not even your team members, such as your manager or personal assistant, should have access to your channel login information. Instead, you should give them only as much access is necessary through the Channel Permissions feature.

You can find this feature in YouTube Studio under “settings.” Invite people to join by entering their email addresses. Then, select “access” to assign their role. Each role has a different level of access, ranging from a viewer (limited), who can only see your non-revenue-related channel details, all the way up to a manager, who can do everything the channel owner can do except delete the channel.

Learn how to spot phishing emails

A phishing email is designed to trick you into giving scammers your personal information. This could range from your channel login information to your bank account info. These dangerous messages may find their way into your inbox alongside legitimate emails from potential sponsors, so it’s important that you learn how to identify them.

Oftentimes, phishing emails are made to look like they’re from a company you recognize. They may say there’s been suspicious activity on your account or something similar that catches your attention. You should check the email address the message came from and assess its legitimacy. Never click on any links in suspicious emails. If you still aren’t sure, contact the company the message is supposedly from directly, but don’t reply to the potentially harmful message.

Keeping your channel safe is incredibly important. Never share your login details with anyone, and always scrutinize emails or DMs from people you don’t know carefully.