A Complete Security Guide For Facebook Users

A Complete Security Guide For Facebook Users

How much of our information is on Facebook?

Any idea!

Right from our names, siblings & parent information, phone number, hometown, academic information, work information, and quite a few personal pictures, we have it all.

That is a lot of information!

This level of openness in social network is definitely alarming.

In such a scenario, can you even imagine having your Facebook account hacked?

We may all feel that why would a hacker ever target me? I am not any celebrity! But, you never know. You could always be in the soup for no reason.

Specially, girls should be more careful about your Facebook security. Having your account hacked can put you in a very high risk.

What could a hacker do once he has hacked into your fb account?

As soon as a hacker hacks into your Facebook account, he can change your login and password. Next, he can even change the associated email with your fb account. That’s really bad.

What’s worse? He can get access to other sites where you could have used the same combination of login and password.

If this includes your email, he could wreck major havoc.

Later, he will get all the details from your profile. This we call – identity theft. He can then pose anyone to be you and do what ever you can imagine off.

Hacker can post some adult content on your profile. Make your friends feel that you are damn bad guy/girl and make them feel still worse about you.

I can tell you. They can do anything. Just anything even beyond your imagination.

How hackers usually steal your Facebook password ?

They don’t usually invent anything from the sky. There are several known ways which they use for hacking. I will list them below with screenshots for you. Please bear them in mind :

1>> Phishing :

This is the most common method used to hack Facebook.

It is also the most efficient method of hacking. In this case, the victim gets a link via email, social network or instant messaging.

Such links would be sent by a friend or may be put on your Facebook wall.

Usually a trap is laid behind this link. All of you need to be very careful with such links. The link takes you to a website which is generally not Facebook.com but looks like Facebook. The same is shown in the screen shot above.

The link is fbaction.net but looks very similar like Facebook.

The victim mistakes the website to be original Facebook website and enters this email and password.

As soon as he enters, the email and password is sent to the hackers email address. He will then login into your account and change your password. Eventually, he will even change your email address and you will completely lose access to your Facebook account.

Prevention Mantra : Be cautious about the links you click. If it looks like it is from a friend, even on your Wall, that says to click on something to win an item, stay away. Be skeptical of any messages that come from a friend that seem suspect, such as being sent to a mass of people with nothing but a link in the content.

2>> Unknown  Applications :

You will be shocked to know that there are applications for password theft on Facebook! In fact, there are many such rouge apps. All hiding amongst legitimate programs and looking to take your profile for a roller-coaster ride.

There has been an increasing number of people saying that they granted access to a page or application and suddenly found themselves regularly posting things to their wall that they never authorized.

Prevention Mantra: The best thing you can do is be aware of bad applications, games, ads and fanpages. That doesn’t mean you should doubt the genuine apps and games but just be careful. Pay attention to certain things, like what information it says it will access, whether you have heard of it before, if anyone you know has used it and the star rating system.

3>> Public Computers :

The easiest way to have your login credentials stolen is by being careless with your login on public computer. There have been countless people who leave their account logged in at school, work, Internet cafes and forget it.

This will let someone who comes on after you see your account and easily hack it.

Prevention Mantra: You should always carefully log out of Facebook account before leaving the computers in public place.

When you are using a device that is not specifically your own, be very careful.

If you do forget, or you want to check, you can go to go to Account Settings >Security. There you will find the “Active Sessions” which has  most recent activity, including what device your account was being used on. You can log out of any device from anywhere using this feature.

How to protect your Facebook account with a comprehensive password?

Yes, even though I intended this article to be only about Passwords for Facebook, but still went on to say everything about Facebook security. Well, it is all for your safety.

Now let me discuss the importance of passwords for Facebook.

You may feel it to be very funny, but let me tell you – Passwords for Facebook are Like Underwear!

Take a look at the image below.

You accept it now, right!

Ok, now let me tell you how to make passwords for Facebook strong and comprehensive.

1>> The very first factor of making a strong password is its length.

The minimum length of passwords should be at least 8.

More the character in the passwords, the better it is.

2>> Second factor is the complexity of the password.

The password should contain at least one character from each of the following group.

•     Lower case alphabets
•     Upper case alphabets
•     Numbers
•     Special Characters such as !@#$%^&*(){}[]

3>> You can even use Passphrase to easily remember the passwords.

You can use initials of a song or a phrase that are very familiar to you. for e.g. “My favorite song is Rehmans – Jai Ho” phrase can be converted to a strong password “MfsR-JHo!”

4>> Once you are done with creating your password, check whether it is enough strong or not from any of the websites below:

• Password Meter
• How Secure is My Password
• Microsoft Safety and Security Center

 The dos & don’t s about passwords for Facebook

1>> Use different passwords for Facebook and your email. Else, if a hacker gets control of one, he/she gets control of both.

2>> Don’t have your passwords that are based on personal information as it can be easily guessed.

3>> Change your password often and make your password strong. Change it at least twice in a month.

4>> Do not use words from dictionaries or names or any places.

5>> Do not use consecutive numbers or letters such as “1234” or “abcd”.

6>> Do not use adjacent keys on your keyboard such as “qwerty” or “asdf”.

7>> Do not repeat the same character in your password such as “aaaa” or “2222”.

8>> Don’t write down your passwords on paper or inside a non-encrypted file.

9>> Do not use the same password for many other accounts and websites.

10>> Never send your password to anybody in an email.

11>> Don’t use the “Remember password” option on browsers like Firefox, IE and Chrome without setting the Master Password.

12>> Change password immediately when you feel it is compromised.

13>> Be skeptical when you type password on a computer that does not belong to you.

14>> Be aware of when a password is sent securely across the Internet.

15>> Last but not least, Do not share your password with anyone.

Is a very strong password enough to protect my Facebook account from being hacked?

The answer is no.

The strong passwords for Facebook is definitely the first step of securing fb, but it alone is not enough to provide comprehensive security.

You will need some thing more to have your Facebook completely secured. Let me discuss them here.

1>> Confirm your Mobile number

This is the best of all available security feature available. It puts a lot of Facebook users at ease. In case your account is hacked by others, you can easily get it back.

Facebook will also send you a new password if your locked out of your account and need to reset your password.

2>> Connect multiple email addresses

Did you know that you can link more than one email account to your Facebook?

Generally, you will be using just one email address to login to your Facebook.
But going further, if you have some more email accounts with you, they can be easily associated with Facebook.
You can easily add them by going to “Account Settings” tab, click on your existing email and the select the option “Add another email address”.

Linking multiple accounts will ensure that you are never locked out of both your email and Facebook at the same time. You can use the secondary email accounts to reset your password and restore your Facebook account at the times of trouble.

3>> Enable SSL Encryption

Encrypted data is hard to crack. Thus by enabling SSL encryption, all your data will be secure.

By default, this feature is disabled. I strongly recommend you to enable it.

To turn on encryption, go to your “Account Settings”. Choose “Security” from the left sidebar then click the “edit“ button to the right of Secure Browsing. Here, you can enable it. Also, you can directly click here to enable.

4>> Security Question

Facebook also provides a feature called Security Question.

It is important to select a question and answer that only you can answer.

Instead of answering “What is your pet name?” with Tommy, you could instead use a complex one that cannot be easily guessed.

5>> Enable Login Notifications

You will need to enable login notifications to be notified of logins to your Facebook account via email or text message.

All you need to do is to go to your “Account Settings”. Choose “Security” from the left sidebar then click the “edit“ button to the right of Login Notifications or click here directly and change it.

6>> Enable Login Approvals

This feature improves security by linking the Facebook account to your mobile phone number.

Facebook sends a special pin code to the linked mobile phone whenever someone tries to log in from an unrecognized computer.

7>> Use App password for your applications.

App password are temporary passwords that can be used to login to your applications without the need of providing your actual Facebook password. Useful in case of some potentially dangerous Apps.

To use this, go to your “Account Settings”. Choose “Security” from the left sidebar then click the “edit“ button to the right of App Passwords and the “Generate app passwords”.

Final Thoughts

Be careful with your prankster friends. A poll found most of the times it is a friend who is behind the hacking.

It goes without saying that you should log out of your Facebook account after you are finished using it.

Also, you should be very careful with  the Facebook apps and where you use Facebook to log into other services.

Never enter your credentials on a non-Facebook site. If you are ever prompted to log in to Facebook, make sure it’s from a legitimate Facebook web address. If something looks or feels off, go directly to www.facebook.com to log in.

Generally, if you follow some easy practices as mentioned in this article, you can have strong passwords for Facebook and thus a completely secure you.