Turning Telegram into a digital fortress, let's go: working practices and recommendations

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Today, not only business representatives who care about their own reputation and data security, but also ordinary users pay serious attention to issues of ensuring confidential and secure work on the Internet. In parallel with the increase in user presence on the network, the cyber threats themselves are growing. Absolutely anyone who communicates on the Internet, exchanges certain documents, stores important data in the digital space can run into hackers. And at the same time, no one will guarantee that personal data will remain securely closed from third-party access.

All this is also relevant for users of the Telegram messenger. Today, it can rightfully be called one of the most popular and sought-after products among millions of people around the world. In many ways, it has earned its reputation due to its emphasis on privacy. But the settings that are provided here by default cannot be considered truly reliable and guaranteeing absolute security. Having assessed the high functionality of the messenger, specialists have made a lot of effort to increase privacy when working with Telegram. And here, users are offered the opportunity to make a number of simple additional settings. This is what minimizes the digital footprint on the network, and also reliably hides private correspondence from any third-party access.

We will now dwell in more detail on how to increase the security of working with the Telegram messenger and turn it into a truly effective and secure tool for communication or work. In particular, we will provide all the methods and tools that will allow you to guarantee the desired privacy and tell you how to perform all these settings as simply and correctly as possible. Having such a structured action plan at hand, you will be able to implement the upcoming work easily and quickly. And this is relevant even for people who are not very well versed in the issues of cybersecurity.

Why should you pay maximum attention to protecting your work with Telegram?

We would like to immediately draw your attention to the fact that all these measures to ensure high levels of privacy and security when working with the Telegram messenger are not a way to confuse you, mislead you, or force you to do unnecessary and unnecessary work. We strongly recommend that you pay attention to all these recommendations and configure the messenger correctly. The fact is that no one is immune from personal data leakage, account theft, phishing attacks, as well as many other methods that Internet attackers use to track user activity and more.

All this has become such a common phenomenon today that even excessive caution will clearly not be superfluous. In particular, here are just a few reasons that should make you think about providing additional levels of protection when working with this messenger:

Ensuring high levels of protection of personal correspondence from third-party access. Everyone should think about this, even those who do not consider themselves particularly interesting to hackers. Here you should understand that the leakage of personal data is this is what can first of all harm your reputation, negatively affect your emotional state, provoke a number of problems in subsequent work.
Security of financial transactions and material resources in general. Telegram analysis shows that today many users use this messenger for business correspondence, making purchases. Payment details and photos of important documentation are sent through it. This is what can cause quite significant financial losses to both a business and an individual.
Minimizing tracking by advertising tools. Today, there is a fairly impressive list of services designed to collect all kinds of metadata. If you manage to minimize your digital footprint, you will reduce the likelihood of your personal profile being formed, which will be used as a result to launch advertising on you or for other purposes.
Increasing resistance to various actions of fraudsters. You should understand that the more information about you is presented on the Internet, the more opportunities hackers have to form convincing extortion schemes or use social engineering tools.

As you can see, using additional security methods when working with the Telegram messenger is not a tribute to fashion, but a truly urgent need. This is truly one of the simplest and most effective ways to ensure decent privacy and security indicators, even for those users who are confident that they are not in danger when working online. But practice shows that this opinion is erroneous: the attention of an Internet attacker can be drawn to absolutely any person, regardless of their type of activity, interests, preferences.

Now we will systematically consider all those methods and solutions that each of you can use in practice to create a truly reliable and safe work in the Telegram messenger.

Choosing the right phone, and with it - a reliable number

Regardless of what kind of work you do in the Telegram messenger, the very first point of interaction in any case will be your phone number. This is what users enter when registering on the site. This means that it will be sensitive information that can provide attackers with many opportunities to implement their plans. By and large, when choosing a SIM card, you will have 2 main options:

A fixed SIM card. Here you should choose the card that is not linked to your name. This solution is becoming less and less available, at least in a number of countries and regions. That is, it is far from possible to go to a specialized store or even an ordinary supermarket at the checkout and buy a SIM card of any operator represented in a given country. But if this opportunity is still available to you, then you can use it.
Using a virtual number. Today, there are many special services that can provide you with a phone number exclusively for confirmation via SMS. But in this case, you need to be extremely careful, because such sites cannot be called safe. At least, not all of them will be reliable. This means that you need to choose only proven platforms that offer not very popular and exposed numbers. This means that you will need to spend some time searching for a suitable service, checking its reputation. But you should definitely not trust open public databases.

As an additional insurance, you can purchase the simplest and cheapest smartphone separately, which you will then use exclusively for working with Telegram. Thanks to this, you will be able to distinguish between the device where the messenger is used and your regular phone with all your personal contacts. But many experts consider such measures to be excessive, and quite deservedly so. This is something that will have an extremely negative impact on the convenience of work.

Therefore, we still recommend betting on choosing a suitable phone number that will not be linked to your personal data. And here the following recommendations will help to do everything as correctly as possible:

Immediately discard the so-called "exposed" numbers. That is, you will initially need to check the number, as an option, through the same search engine, to make sure that it is not displayed in it. If you see that it is here, that there are many complaints about it, then this will indicate a connection to spam mailing. We immediately remove such numbers from consideration.
Interact only with trusted suppliers. If you are not sure that you can find a suitable option for yourself through the relevant services, then bet on an alternative solution that is distinguished by increased reliability.
Avoid free services, sites where free public access is provided. Here, numbers quite often change hands. It may turn out that in the end you will simply lose control over your own account in the messenger.

Now that you already have a fairly reliable number at your disposal, through which registration in Telegram will be carried out, you can proceed to the next stage of installing the messenger and performing its initial setup.

Installing or performing initial privacy settings in the Telegram messenger

We assume that at this stage you already have a phone number at your disposal to confirm registration, and you have already downloaded and installed Telegram on your smartphone from the official website of the developer or from the corresponding app store. Now you will need to launch the messenger and enter the appropriate number for registration. In a few seconds, you will receive a confirmation code on your phone, which you will need to enter in a certain field. After that, you can proceed directly to the settings. At this stage, you will need to:

Activate contact synchronization.
Set restrictions on the number's visibility on the network.
Hide options such as «Last seen» and «Online» status.

Now we will consider in detail how to perform the work at each of these stages.

Activate contact synchronization in Telegram

Immediately after connecting, Telegram will by default offer you to synchronize your contacts, thereby adding all subscribers saved in your address book. By and large, this is very convenient and quite reasonable, since users will not have to enter the corresponding name each time to send a message to a person. But since today we are talking directly about ensuring anonymity, such an idea would still be quite bad. As soon as you agree to such actions, the platform will start checking all your contacts, sending out a mailing to all your friends, informing them that you have registered in the messenger. Therefore, if you still want to use Telegram, but at the same time remain "in the shadows", then it would still be advisable to answer "no" to the automatic request of the platform "Allow access to contacts?".

You can also perform these tasks later. In particular, you will need to do the following:

Go to the "Settings" menu of the messenger.
Find a tab such as "Privacy and security" or “Privacy”.
Deactivate the “Contact Sync” option.

If you already have downloaded contacts, you need to delete them.

Set restrictions on number visibility

At this stage, you must determine who will be able to see your phone number. All other users will be able to find you only by the name you entered during registration. Today, Telegram already has the ability to hide your phone number from all people whose numbers you have not saved. But if you want to ensure unrivaled security, then it would be a logical decision to hide your phone number altogether and not show it to anyone, even your closest friends and acquaintances. To implement this idea, you will need to do the following:

Go to the "Settings" tab, select the "Privacy and Security" option, and then from the list provided - "Phone Number".
Next to the phrase "Who can see my phone number?" you will need to move the slider to the "Nobody" position.
If you still want to leave the number visible to your saved contacts, then you need to keep the "Only for my contacts" option active.

Thanks to such works, neither an Internet intruder nor any other curious user will be able to identify your phone number via the Telegram messenger, even if they really wanted to.

Hide options such as “Last visit” and “Online” status

Such settings are necessary so that other users do not see when you were last online. Therefore, in order to ensure unrivaled privacy when working with Telegram, you still need to hide this information from absolutely everyone. In this case, follow these steps:

Go to the “Settings” menu, then select the “Privacy and security” option.
Of all the options presented here, you are interested in such a line as “Last visit and online”. Here we select the “Nobody” button.
If you want to set up exceptions, you can also do this by specifying the appropriate contacts.

In this case, you should be prepared for the fact that you will also not be able to see the “online” status of all those users from whom you have closed your information. This is the platform's policy.

In the next step, we will set up two-factor authentication in Telegram.

Setting up two-factor authentication with a complex password

Setting up a complex cloud password is one of the key elements in protecting your Telegram accounts. Now we are not talking about the code that you will receive in the form of an SMS message, which would be typical for classic two-factor authentication, but a special technical solution implemented inside the messenger. It turns out that even if someone from the third parties knows your phone number and can access the SMS code, they still will not be able to connect to your account, since they will not have a cloud password at their disposal.

To activate this option, you will need to do the following:

Go to the "Settings" menu. Here we are interested in the same section that we already talked about above, namely "Privacy and security". From the options presented, select "Two-step authorization" or "Additional password" depending on your version of the messenger.
Create and enter a complex password. It must contain at least 12 characters, including letters of different registers, uppercase and lowercase, as well as special characters and numbers.
Link a backup email address. This way, you can restore access to your account if you accidentally forget your password. In this case, it is recommended to use secure or disposable email.

The biggest mistake that users make at this stage is using a sequential set of numbers or symbols on the keyboard, or their date of birth as a password. This is something that even inexperienced Internet attackers can quickly hack and use for their own purposes. So don't be lazy and come up with a really decent password.

Launching the use of secret chats

In order to ensure higher rates of confidential and anonymous work in the messenger, Telegram has provided such a tool as secret chats. Its essence lies in the use of end-to-end encryption. The fact is that ordinary chats here will be stored on servers in encrypted form. But if such a need arises, the site administration reserves the right to restore the data and provide the relevant information upon request. This will not happen if you use secret chats. Only you and the person you are sending it to can decrypt the information stored here.

To start such a chat, you need to do the following:

Go to the profile of the user with whom you want to organize a secret chat.
Click on the “More” button, which can be displayed on your device as 3 vertical dots or 3 horizontal stripes, and then select the “Start a secret chat” option.
Set a self-destruct timer for messages, if this is relevant for you. You yourself choose the best option, through which your correspondence will be automatically deleted in an interval from a couple of seconds to up to a month. When this option is activated, messages will disappear irretrievably for both interlocutors.

We would like to draw attention to the fact that although Telegram is currently attempting to notify users about the creation of screenshots, if your interlocutor does take a screenshot, this information, alas, will be saved in his gallery.

Disable any traces, including automatic saving

Telegram's functionality includes the ability to automatically save all received photos and videos to the gallery of the user's device. But in practice, it is better to refuse such a solution, since in this case the smartphone's memory will fill up at an accelerated pace. But this is only one drawback. It is also important to understand that if someone from the outside can access your phone, these files will become available to them. But they are highly likely to contain confidential and important information.

To prevent this, you will need to disable automatic saving of media. To do this, follow these steps:

Go to the "Settings" tab, and here select the "Data and memory" option. Read all the items presented here, and click on the "Save to gallery" button. There may be another name depending on the model of your device.
Move the slider next to the "Automatic saving of media files" option from the active to the inactive state.
If you want, in the same section you can limit automatic media loading in order to save traffic and provide additional security, and also disable message preview on the lock screen so that incoming notifications do not reveal the content of your correspondence.

Now let's move on to who, to activate account visibility restrictions.

Activating account visibility restrictions

In this case, we are talking about hiding your photo and biography (brief information about the user) from strangers. But in any case, if you are thinking about ensuring your own privacy, then you should clearly not post your real photo in your profile. Alternatively, you can refuse this decision altogether or choose a neutral avatar for yourself. The same applies to filling out your biography. The site does not require you to indicate your date of birth or any other information about you. By and large, you can leave these blocks empty.

But if you have already specified all the data and do not want to make adjustments to the profile, you can simply limit its viewing. In particular, to do this you need to:

Go to the "Settings" tab, select the "Privacy and Security" folder here, and in it a tool such as "Profile Photo".
Here, choose whether you want to completely disable the visibility of the account or leave it visible to those users who are listed in your contacts. In accordance with the decision made, move the slider to the current position.
If you want to keep the avatar, then delete the photo, replacing it with some picture that does not contain personal data.

In order to ensure the highest possible security, the optimal solution would still be to completely remove all personal information from the profile.

Configuring a local password and timeout

Along with the built-in two-factor cloud authentication, which is provided in this messenger, there is also the ability to set a separate local password for Telegram itself. It turns out that if a third party takes your unlocked phone, he will still not be able to enter your correspondence without an additional password. To implement such an idea, follow these steps:

Go to the "Settings" tab, here select the "Privacy and Security" option, and then we are interested in such a tool as "Code-password" or "Password-pin", depending on the version.
Create a password or a pin code for yourself. Here, it is also worth using complex combinations, excluding birthday and other data that can be easily guessed.
Specify a suitable timeout for yourself, optimally in the range from 1 to 5 minutes. If you are inactive during this time, then the next time you connect, Telegram will ask you to enter the appropriate password.

Of course, additional data entry is this is something that will create additional inconveniences in the work, but still here we are talking about ensuring the highest possible security when working with the messenger, and this in turn requires additional actions. And without this - no way.

Use a generated nickname and hide your username

Absolutely any user of the messenger will be able to create a unique name for themselves, by which other people will be able to find them on the site. But still, in order to ensure high anonymity rates, it is better not to use this function or to bet on a name when specifying data that will not be tied to your real information, be it your first name, last name, date of birth.

By and large, other users absolutely do not care what name they will enter to find your account and send a message. But hackers and other unscrupulous individuals will not be able to use such a name to identify you even if they really wanted to. Agree, the name @xK3_a9R4 will say much less about you than @olgapetrova1989.

Setting up self-destruction of the account

If there is a possibility that at a certain point in time you will stop using your account, then the best solution would be to set it to self-destruct. The standard interval here is considered to be six months of non-use, but by and large you can set any other indicator, starting from 1 month. That is, as soon as there is no activity in the messenger for the specified period of time, the platform will automatically delete your profile along with all correspondence and media files. To perform these actions, you need to:

Go to the "Settings" tab, and then select "Privacy and Security".
Here, from the list, click on the option "Delete account if inactive".
Set a suitable period of time, after which, if there is no activity, Telegram will delete your profile.

We remind you that you will also have the opportunity to manually delete correspondence, chat history. It is especially important to do this when it contains really important information. But if this is not a secret chat, then you must understand that all correspondence will remain with the interlocutor - only you will delete it.

Detecting activity in channels and groups

This requirement is relevant in case of connecting to large channels or groups. Here, information about your account will be displayed to all participants in any case. We are talking about your name, phone number, username, if you have not provided measures to hide them. If you want to ensure the highest possible privacy, it is recommended to completely refuse to connect to such groups, relying only on a closed community, where people you know well are represented.

Considering the increased popularity of Telegram, it can be assumed that most users will still find it useful and necessary to use public groups or channels. In this case, it makes sense to create a separate account for such public discussions, hiding its data as much as possible, or simply study the information, but do not be active, do not interact with other participants.

Use additional tools, such as alternative clients

Along with the official version of the Telegram messenger, alternative platforms are also available on the market today, such as the same Telegram X or clients built on open source code. Most of them provide more security solutions than the classic messenger. But here you need to be extremely careful, since the possibility of hidden dangers cannot be ruled out. An unverified alternative to the messenger may contain malicious code, not be updated in a timely manner.

If you consider yourself a fairly advanced user, then you can try to run the desktop version of Telegram in portable mode, which will allow you to avoid leaving traces in the system. To implement such an idea, you first need to download the corresponding ZIP archive from the official website of the developer, unpack it. Next, create an empty file, saving it in the directory with the program under the name tdata or portable_mode (it all depends on your version). That is, your messenger will now be stored not on the system user's disk, but in its own folder, which will increase security indicators.

Experts also recommend additionally using special virtual machines, sandboxes that prevent Telegram from directly accessing the main system. But only people with certain knowledge and skills will most likely be able to implement this.

Increasing the physical security of the user device

Surely there is no point in talking about creating hidden accounts, encrypting data if outsiders can easily access your smartphone, tablet, computer. If they get their hands on it, they can easily and simply extract all the information they need. Therefore, the key aspect in ensuring comprehensive security will still be the physical protection of your device. At this stage, we recommend using the following recommendations:

Set a password or a PIN code when unlocking your device. In most cases, classic biometric data, whether it is face recognition or a fingerprint, will not be enough, because they can be made to work even without the owner's will.
Pay attention to the regularity of updating the operating system. Outdated versions in their majority contain vulnerabilities. And this is true for both Android and iOS.
Encrypt the memory of your device. By the way, this option is already built in by default in most modern smartphones, but it is still recommended to perform an additional check, making sure that it is activated.
When working with a browser, use incognito mode and never save your logins and passwords on public computers. Probably, it will be superfluous to mention, but still forget about using public Wi-Fi networks.
Do not forget to connect reliable antivirus software to your Windows device. It is also advisable to manually filter incoming files, immediately deleting suspicious options.

The rules are really simple, but their use will significantly increase the security of your device.

Follow the principles of "digital hygiene"

If you yourself disclose confidential information about yourself, then none of the security tools will be able to provide the desired level of security. That is, if you are used to clicking on all links without exception, joining various chats, the name of which turned out to be interesting to you, you increase the risk of falling for a hacker's trick many times over. It is very important to observe the so-called "digital hygiene", the basic principles of which include:

Exclude clicking on unfamiliar links. Even if someone you know sends you a link, check its safety using specialized services.
You shouldn't add strangers to your contacts, especially if you don't understand their intentions.
Don't install applications on your device that you're not sure about, including those that promise advanced functionality for the messenger. They are highly likely to contain spyware.
Keep your personal and contact information secret, including even when corresponding with contacts you are not sure about.

By not following these simple rules, you can reveal your identity, thereby causing various problems when working with Telegram.

Additionally connecting a proxy server to work

Information about the real IP-address of your device and its location can provide Internet attackers with more information than it seems at first glance. Therefore, if you have doubts about the reliability of your Internet provider, if you want to ensure the most comprehensive protection against negative external influences, use mobile proxies in your work. Telegram already supports HTTP(S) and Socks5 proxies in its basic settings. This is the easiest and most reliable way to redirect all traffic through an encrypted connection. Thanks to this solution, you get:

reliable concealment of your IP, which will not allow hackers to figure out your real device and, as a result, gain access to it;
ensuring complete privacy when working on the Internet: your identity will be reliably hidden, including from the system itself;
using an additional level of encryption that protects the traffic itself;
effectively bypassing regional blocking and access restrictions by replacing your real GEO with suitable options;
simple, convenient and flexible change of address forced by a link from your personal account or automatically by timer.

But here you need to choose the best solution from what the modern market offers. In order not to spend a long time looking for a suitable option, we recommend paying attention to mobile proxies from the MobileProxy.Space service. For more detailed information on the functionality of this solution, current tariffs and other nuances of use, please visit the link https://mobileproxy.space/en/user.html?buyproxy.

Summing up

If you choose Telegram as your main messenger for personal communication and work, then you should definitely provide reliable protection against unauthorized access. And all the recommendations that we have provided in today's review will provide you with significant assistance in organizing this. You do not have to use absolutely all solutions, because if you maintain decent digital hygiene, you can significantly reduce potential risks and dangers. But still, there are a number of recommendations that you should not neglect.

One of the desirable moments for use will still be the use of mobile proxies. You will be able to test this product for 2 hours absolutely free of charge to make sure of the wide functionality and convenience of this solution. If technical difficulties or additional questions arise, you can contact the support service, which operates around the clock.

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