BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Social media has changed the way businesses do business.
It helps business owners engage with customers, find out what people are saying about their business and use social media for advertising.
It is also another way to build customer loyalty.
However, if you are not careful, the path to accessing those customers directly can be taken with the blink of an eye.
Earlier this month, 7 News' Pheben Kassahun introduced you to the owner of Dalia's Bridal, in Williamsville.
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She said her business was dealing with issues because one of its social media accounts was hacked, but she is not the only local business running into this problem.
Buff-a-logo's owner confirmed via phone that one of its social media page was hacked this year, which lost them a lot of followers.
Primo Lighting and Sound, out of East Amherst, also underwent a hack.
"My business name on Facebook now says 'Meta Copyright infringement'. The hacker supposedly changed my name, phone number, email and passwords. So I have no way of contacting Meta or Facebook to get my information back," Primo Giammusso told Kassahun.
Primo Giamusso is the owner and founder of Primo Lighting and Sound.
The 21-year-old started his business five years ago, while in high school and kept it running through college.
"I get a majority of the business that I get through social media," he added.
On September 22, his business Facebook page was hacked, and he essentially lost more than half of his 1,000 followers.
"I have had so many reviews on Facebook and there's no way to access there's no way to access the information for me. My page is still up on Facebook but I have no way of controlling it or making my posts. I am thankful that I have access to Instagram because that's where I have many of my followers still," he explained.
Giammusso has contacted Meta, the California attorney general which is where Meta is headquartered, and the New York State attorney general but he is still locked out of his account.
The same goes for Dalia's Bridal, in Williamsville.
The owner lost her Instagram page on September 27.
Dalia Nowak explained, "I go online right away and I start trying to change my password and it wouldn't let me. The faster I tried to change it, it just kept blocking me. Finally, they changed the email where everything goes to and then I was just out."
She also utilizes social media to entice her customers near and far, for her bridal shop.
Nowak said, "We use it a lot to let our customers know what's coming in new, what events we have going on, different collaborations that we may do with other wedding vendors and promoting the brides that have said yes, and showing people that this is a good place to come."
She said she has since added 2-factor authentication onto her all of her accounts.
Both Nowak and Giammusso told Kassahun the hacks have negatively impacted their business and promotional products.
Buffalo cyber security expert Arun Vishwanath suggests businesses with social media pages to actively manage their accounts.
He added that you see account activity that you do not recognize, log out immediately from all of your devices.
Then, reset your password.
Vishwanath said, "Then if you have any apps that have access to your account. You have apps that allow access on the back end, log out of all of them. Remove that third party access because that's something you cannot control once you give them access."
Additionally, check to see if any messages in your inbox are going out that you have not sent.
That is a clear indicator that someone has access to your account.
Vishwanath added, "Start contacting Meta or whoever the social media company is and say, 'Hey, my account has been hacked. Start telling me about it so they can block it. Those are some proactive steps you can take. That will quickly stop or put the breaks on it.'"
Here are the social media accounts for the businesses mentioned above:
