Instagram Just Made An Important Update To Protect Your Photos

Two factor authentication is currently one of the best ways to make sure unwanted parties can't gain access to your online accounts. And this week, Instagram announced it is finally joining the two factor crowd led by Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and others. This is great news if you've ever worried about someone taking over your Instagram feed and posting photos to your account — or deleting them from existence. Two factor authentication works like this: You have your username and password, which you enter normally to log in. Once you've done that, a unique, automatically generated code is then (usually) texted to your phone. You enter that code in the app, and then you're in. Each time you log in, a new code is generated. For someone to hack your account, they would need your password information, your phone, and your phone's PIN. For an app like Instagram, you'll likely only need to go through the whole two factor process when you first sign into the app on a device. You won't need to enter that info every time you use the app. Instagram will slowly roll out two factor to its users, so you may not see the option to beef up your security just quite yet. When you do get the option though, go ahead and update. Two factor is always good to have — on any account.