Don't leak your personal data: how to set up privacy in Telegram

Telegram messenger is a convenient way to exchange information. Channels quickly report news, loved ones are constantly in touch, and file sharing is instantaneous. On the other hand, Telegram is a tasty morsel for all kinds of fraudsters. After all, it's linked to your phone number, contains your contacts, and a lot of sensitive information can be found in chats.

That's why it's important to protect your Telegram account from hacking and theft. The Molfar about OSINT channel decided to remind you how to do it properly. To do this, you will have to carefully check your settings.

Two-factor authentication

Enable two-factor authentication. In this case, to change your account password, you will have to enter an additional verification code that will be sent to your phone number. You can find this option in the settings on the Privacy and Security tab.

Required privacy settings

Also on the "Privacy and Security " tab, perform a few more actions that will help protect your account. First of all, hide your phone number. In the corresponding submenu, choose not to show it to anyone. In addition, leave the possibility of finding you by phone number only to your contacts.

In the Last activity field, select the "no one" option to hide notifications from all your contacts about the last time you were online. Leave your profile photo visible to your contacts.

In the Notifications tab, it's important to set the correct permission to send messages along with the link to your account. This right should be reserved only for your contacts.

You will also have to set some restrictions on calls. In the "Who can call me " tab, select the "My contacts" or "No one" option, depending on your needs. Do the same in the "Peer-to-peer" sub-item. This will allow you to hide your IP address from prying eyes.

On the Groups and Channels tab, allow only your contacts to add you. Do not enable the "People Nearby" feature and disable automatic media downloads to protect yourself from accidentally downloading viruses and malware.

Be sure to check your active Telegram sessions. All the devices in it should be familiar to you. Outdated, incomprehensible, and suspicious sessions should be terminated.

And keep in mind that standard Telegram chats do not have end-to-end encryption, so they can be hacked and read. If you want to discuss some sensitive information, create a separate secret chat for this purpose, only then you will get an encrypted communication channel.

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