Facebook today is one of the most popular websites and one of the most attacked too. But with some caution and common-sense, you can stay absolutely safe and continue to enjoy it! Here’s a list of a few basic tips to safeguard your privacy as well as your Facebook account.
How to secure your Facebook account
1] First and foremost, use a strong password
You might have heard this a million times but still, thousands of accounts are compromised every day because of weak passwords. Why is that? That’s because most people don’t know how to determine whether their password is weak or strong. Thus you might think that your password is strong while in reality, it would be too weak.
Here are a few tips to choose a strong password:
- Don’t use a word that is connected to you because these days’ hackers use a technique called social engineering to guess your password. So your favorite quote or book title may not be the best password. The most effective way is to use a non-dictionary word.
- It’s good to have a password that is sufficiently long (8 or more characters).
- It should be a mixed case and should include alphanumeric and special characters.
This post will show you how to manage Facebook Ad Preferences & opt-out of Ad Tracking.
2] Use proper Privacy Settings
Facebook had recently come under heavy criticisms due to its confusing privacy settings. The pressure was so high that the Facebook team had to overhaul the settings to make it more user friendly. Now you can select from a list of preconfigured settings such as “Everyone”, “Friends of friends”, “Friends only” and “Recommended” apart from customizing it as you wish.
You can use the recommended settings with the below points in mind:
If your Friends list includes people whom you don’t know well, then you should change your privacy settings so that only people whom you trust can view important and personal details.
- For that first, go to the Privacy Settings page by clicking Account (found on the top right corner of the Facebook page) and select Privacy Settings.
- Now click customize settings. Edit the settings under Contact information by selecting the drop-down box and select Custom.
You can either select a specific user or choose to hide it from everyone by selecting “Only Me”.
- Keep the tagged photos private. Follow the above steps to go to the customization page of privacy Settings.
- Under “Things others share” click the drop-down box next to “Photos and videos I’m tagged in” and select the desired option.
This post details some of the Best Facebook Privacy Settings you can follow.
3] Never click suspicious links
Never click suspicious links, even if they appear to come from a friend or a company you know or from a Facebook ad.
4] Enable Login Alerts
You might want to enable Login Alerts and See Who’s Logged Into Your Account.
- To do this, go to Settings > Security > Where You’re Logged In.
- Click End Activity for any unfamiliar devices or locations.
Read: Cloned Facebook Account: How to remove, find, stop, or report it?
5] Be careful of Facebook Apps
Facebook apps might be fun to use but they also pose a threat of stealing your information. Now don’t get me wrong – not all of the Facebook apps are not bad. But not all of them are not good either! So always exercise caution before allowing any new application. Remove apps that you don’t need anymore. You can view all the installed apps by going to the “Application Settings” page by clicking Account and then selecting “Application Settings”.
Identity fraudsters target Facebook and other social networking sites to harvest information about you. So please do take your Facebook privacy settings very seriously. Follow these basic tips and you can enjoy safe “Facebooking”!
This post offers some more Tips & Security Applications for Facebook to secure your Facebook account.
