Facebook, one of the most active social media networks in the world. A data gold mine, and the perfect place for cyber criminals and hackers to gather personal information from unaware users.
Unaware users are not stupid
People which are unaware of the threats on Facebook, are not stupid, they just lack the awareness to spot and see malicious and dangerous activities on Facebook.
So in order to help those unaware people forward, we have made an list of Facebook security tips which are given by security professionals.
Facebook security tip 1: Creating your profile
The first time you create an account on Facebook, you only have to provide the following information:
- First name
- Last name
- Email / Mobile number
- New password
- Date of birth
- Gender
This information is already interesting for cyber criminals, your first name and last name can be used to search for additional information which has been shared on the internet.
- Your mobile or email number can be used to send spam / malicious emails / or to gather extra information.
- Your gender and date of birth allows the cyber criminals to setup ‘specific’ social engineering attacks (spear-phishing).
But that is it, the information which is shared with Facebook the first time, is very limited. So when you create your profile on Facebook, you can try to add ‘adjusted’ personal information in order to stay hidden on the internet.
For example, if your name is “Reza”, you could put your first name as “Rez”, same thing goes for the last name. In the ‘Perfect way to secure your social media accounts‘ tutorial, we have explained that it is wise to create an specific email address for all your social media activities.
Facebook security tip 2: Use TWO-FACTOR authentication
The second tip is to use TWO-FACTOR authentication when possible, the reason for this is very simple, you will add another step for authentication with the TWO-FACTOR authentication security solution, making it harder for cyber criminals and hackers to gain access to your account.
If the cyber criminal or hacker wants to gain access on a profile which uses TWO-FACTOR authentication, the cyber criminal or hacker will have to have physical access to the mobile device which has been registered for TWO-FACTOR authentication.
Just do remember, that with more security solutions, the ease of access will decrease. If you forget your mobile phone, you will not be able to login to your own Facebook account, as you will NEED the mobile phone to provide the ‘EXTRA’ password which has been send to you by Facebook.
To enable TWO-FACTOR authentication on Facebook, you will have to navigate to the following page:
On that page, you will see the ‘Login Approvals’ field, enable the use of ‘Login Approvals’ and follow the setup instructions which are provided by Facebook.
Facebook security tip 3: Login alerts
The Facebook social media environment provides the option to receive ‘Login Alerts’ when your account is used – this allows you to keep track of ‘weird’ logins and hack attempts.
It is strongly recommended to enable this option, if everything is correct and your profile has not been compromised, you will receive no to little ‘Login Alerts’ from Facebook.
You can change that here:
Facebook security tip 4: Who can see my stuff
Another important step into securing your Facebook account is the ‘Who can see my stuff’ option. This option is often set to ‘Public’ by default, but this is not the best option to use.
Instead use the ‘Friends’ option by default – this option forces Facebook to only show your ‘Facebook posts’ and ‘Facebook shares’ to people which you have accepted as your ‘Friend’ on Facebook.
Making it harder for cyber criminals to collect personal information from your page – as they will have to be friends with you before they can view your profile (details).
You can edit those options here:
Facebook security tip 5: Who can look me up
The default Facebook security settings for the ‘Who can look me up’ function has been setup in such an order that it allows people to search for your Facebook account when they have one of the following values:
- Email address
- Phone number
Setup both the values to the ‘Friends’ value so that only friends can use those details to find your profile. Making it harder for unknown people to lookup your profile for additional information (which can be used in future attacks).
You can change those values here:
Facebook Security tip 6: Search Engines to link to your Facebook profile
Another option which has to be checked is the ‘Search Engines’ option which allows Search Engines like Google to index your Facebook profile and details which come with that profile.
- When this setting is on, search engines may link to your Profile in their results.
- When this setting is off, search engines will stop linking to your Profile, but this may take some time. Your Profile can still be found on Facebook if people search for your name.
You can change those values here:
Handy?!
If you think that this post was useful, please do not hesitate to share it around – we are certain that there are more security tips which can be used on Facebook, so what are your security tips? Or did you ever experience an Facebook hack on your profile, what were the consequences, which actions did you take ?!