Protect your Reddit account

If you want to have maximum security in your reddit account to avoid hacking, the first thing you should do is choose a good access password, and then enable two-step authentication that allows us to serve. The first thing we should do on reddit is register or log in with our regular account.

Once we are logged in, we should go to the user menu and click on « User Settings », or « User Settings »

Once we enter the account settings, we can see all the options that allow us to do related to our account and also to security.

Put a strong password

The first thing you should do to keep your account secure is to put a robust password. If you did not enter a strong password when registering, then you can change it from the « Account » menu and click on « Change password », the key must be at least 8 characters long. To create a robust password, you must have the following:

• Minimum of 12 characters in length.
• Have upper, lower case, and numbers.
• It is desirable that you have a symbol to improve security.

Our recommendation is that you use a password manager to generate the password automatically and that it be saved in the key manager itself. Some highly recommended password managers or administrators are:

• Dashlane
• 1Password
• LastPass
• Bitwarden
• Passwarden

We also have password managers in some security suites such as Avira or Kaspersky among others, so it is also a good alternative. For example, Synology has C2 Password which is a key manager with Cloud storage, it can also be interesting, especially for NAS users.

You can also use the password managers of the browser itself if it has, or we have installed an extension that does the function of password administrator. In the event that you do not want to use the key suggested by the key manager, you can always access password generating websites to configure the key as you want.

Once we have changed the key, you must also change it from the password manager so that it remembers the new one.

Activate authentication in two steps

If we want to activate two-step verification to further protect our reddit account, we must go to the « Security and Privacy » section. In this menu we must go all the way down where it says «Use 2-step verification«. We click here to enable it.

We will get a small step-by-step configuration wizard to perform the two-step verification settings. The first thing we have to do is enter our current password to verify the identity, and click on « Confirm ».

Now we will have to download an authenticating application from Google Play or the App Store. Currently there are many authenticating applications, so you should not have many problems choosing one of them, then we put a list of recommended applications that we use in RedesZone:

• Telefónica's Latch
• Google Authenticator
• Authy

There are also other applications such as Microsoft itself, really the operation of all of them is very similar, but that of Google Authenticator the tokens are saved locally, so if you change your mobile you will lose them if you are not root in the terminal and you move these token to the new terminal. For this reason, our recommendation is to use authenticating applications that store this in the cloud, to facilitate the use of them.

Once we have the authenticating application, all we have to do is scan the QR code that will show us reddit, When registering the service, it will begin to generate temporary codes of a single use, we will have to enter the 6-digit code that the application will show us, and we click on « Complete configuration ».

Reddit will now confirm that two-step verification is already activated and working. From this moment on we will have to log in with our username and password, and then it will ask us for the TOTP code ( single-use temporary code ) to verify our identity.

When we activate the two-step verification of a service, we have the possibility of using backup codes in case we do not have our smartphone to generate the codes, or we have some kind of problem with the application. Clicking on the « Backup Codes » hyperlink will take us to a menu where we can see several 6-digit codes that replace the TOTP codes generated by our smartphone. These codes must be kept very well in a safe and private place, because with these codes you can log in as if you had the authenticating application.

If we want to obtain the backup codes to keep them safe, we must enter the access password again to verify our identity:

Upon entering we can see the complete list of backup codes, as you can see, we must save them in a safe place. In case of losing these codes, we can access our account to generate new ones, there is no problem in this regard.

If we return to the main menu of « Security and privacy » we can already see that the 2-step verification option is perfectly activated. We also have the hyperlink to obtaining the backup codes.

Another security measure that we can carry out is to go to « manage the authorization of third-party applications », and that is that we can log in to other services using the reddit account. If any of these third-party applications do not use it, it is recommended to revoke this permission for security.

At this time we will have our reddit account protected as much as possible, we must bear in mind that the fundamental steps to protect any online account is:

• Choose a good password.
• Activate authentication in 2 steps, but do not use the SMS method because it is not secure.
• Review third-party applications that have access to our account.

Once we meet all of these requirements, then we can rest assured that our digital identity will be secure.