Nowadays, each of us fills our Facebook account with personal data almost without realizing it. We believe that here, our information is safe… at least until someone does not hack the account!
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If it is true that there are special procedures to follow when your Facebook account has already been attacked, it should never be forgotten that the best form of defense is always and in any case prevention.
In this article we will tackle this problem by following this point of view of those who want to avoid problems, protecting their account even before it is the victim of an attack.
Safe Facebook account – prevention is better than cure
Beyond the universal rules how to avoid clicking on suspicious links (internally to the social or even in any other site opened in the browser), there are a series of actions and behaviors to be kept in mind.
Password
It may seem obvious, but often this is not the case – choosing a strong password can really make a difference. The idea is to include numbers, words and special characters (uppercase and lowercase).
Use a little imagination and try to create combinations without apparent logic. If it is difficult to remember the password created in this way, turn to a hard copy (which you can also mark all the other passwords) to keep hidden under the bed or in some other safe part of the house.
Since your email is your Facebook username, you should make sure that this is hidden and protected. To do this you must:
- open the Information page
- click on Contacts and basic information in the left column
- hover over the Email field and click the Edit button when it appears
- click the down arrow and change access to only me and then save the changes.
In this way, nobody, except you, can see your email.
Disable applications
Applications connected to a Facebook account can be very convenient. At the same time, however, these can be real channels for hackers – unlink and uninstall from your account all the apps you do not use, especially if they are not particularly famous programs and platforms. To do this:
- click on the triangle icon on the top bar of Facebook
- select Settings and locate Apps and websites in the left column
- click on it to see all the apps with access linked to your account and select the boxes of those you want to delete, then click on the blue button at the top.
Beware of unrecognized access warnings
If you want to make sure no one is logging into your account, enable the Receive notifications to feature on unrecognized accesses. With this, you can choose if you want to receive these notifications directly via Facebook, via email or on your smartphone. Every time you log in from a different place, you will receive one of these messages.
In this way, if you are under attack by a hacker or an attacker, you will immediately be warned.
Two-factor authentication
From here on we start to draw heavy weapons – with two-factor authentication, you almost completely make life impossible for hackers. What is it?
Thanks to this login method, after entering the username and password, Facebook sends a security code to the phone that you must enter to gain access. No one will be able to access your account without having physical access to your phone.
If you’re using a web browser on a computer, enable two-factor identification like this:
- go to Settings like you did to check your apps
- click on the Security and access option at the top of the column on the left
- Click Edit next to Use two-factor authentication and follow the instructions.
If instead, you intend to enable it on a mobile device it is necessary:
- tap the menu icon (three horizontal lines or vertical points)
- scroll down to Settings
- select Privacy – Account Settings – Security and Access
- scroll and then tap Use two-factor authentication to then follow the instructions provided.
Encrypt notification emails
With two-factor authentication, we should have eliminated the most naive hackers. If for some reason, however, you are dealing with people much more prepared, it is good to make use of additional protections.
One way to make sure that all emails coming from Facebook are authentic is to enable a public key to encrypt messages. To do this it is necessary:
- Go to Settings – Security and Access
- go down and click on the Encrypted notification email
- add the OpenPGP public key and allow Facebook to send encrypted messages
You will receive a test email to verify that you can read these messages. If everything goes as planned, you can now start using encrypted messages.
How do hackers usually behave?
To conclude this discourse, it is good to try to understand also how our enemy behaves. In fact, when the hackers are all the barred doors, they can try to induce you in some trap – here we show you some methods usually used.
Always keep in mind that new methods are being devised to infiltrate Facebook accounts and therefore, regardless of what is written, always keep your attention high.
Messages
Do not reply to any type of post or message that asks you to verify your credentials or your password.
If you get a message like this publicly, surely it is not from Facebook and just as surely it is an attacker.
Apps and games
While there are a lot of absolutely legitimate and useful apps that are used on Facebook every day, there are many that are the antechamber of a scam.
If a friend asks you to try an app, do not do it – first, send him a private message to verify that the request is true and has not been forwarded by a malicious bot.
Pay attention to the emails that seem to come from Facebook since even if email services such as Gmail block this type of attacks, some new method used by hackers may not end the email directly in spam.
Do not click on any links in the emails. Log in to your Facebook account and check if a message is also present within it.
External links
Pay attention to the links that appear on your timeline or in the newsfeed. Even if someone you know has sent the link, remember that this could come from an account already hacked by hackers!
If your friend is sending unusual links, let them know.
Friendship request
Finally, be very cautious when you accept friend requests from people you do not know in real life. There are good reasons to allow these requests due to shared interests or common friends, but before doing so, check their account.
If it is an account that has a few days or hours of life, with a couple of pictures (often of a beautiful young lady), it is most likely a fake and it is better not to accept that kind of friend requests. Most likely they are accounts that spam content, but why take the risk? Better to reject the friend request.
