Techiebytes

Do you know who or what has access to your Facebook account? Have you considered the impact of your Facebook account being hijacked? I’m not talking about protecting your identity or privacy, just simply protecting your Facebook login itself.

With nearly 1 billion users, businesses know that potential customers most likely have Facebook accounts. It’s normally in the best interest of the business and the user to have a unified login (Login With Facebook) option on a website or application. As a user, the idea of a single click beats a long boring form any day. Over time the number of sites that are linked to your Facebook credentials grows, and before you know it hundreds of sites trust Facebook for permission to your data.

Don’t believe me? Just take a look by:

1. Visiting Facebook
2. Clicking on the down arrow to the right of home
3. Selecting Account Settings
4. Then clicking Apps from the menu on the left

Now that we know where to find the tools, let’s do a shallow dive into them:

1. Secure Browsing – This option turns on SSL encryption (secure like e-commerce) while you’re using Facebook, this keeps prying eyes out of your business and protects you from simple hacks like the one I posted last week. Turn this on and keep it on.
2. Login Notifications - Enabling this will allow Facebook to alert you when a new device connects to your account. You can choose to be alerted via email or text messages. The idea behind this is that if someone other than you is accessing your account via a machine or device you don’t trust, you’ll be notified. Again this is a good one to have enabled.
3. Login Approvals – This goes a step beyond notifications and asks you to approve devices before log-in can occur. In this case, when you use a new computer or device to connect, a text message with a code will be sent to your phone. The device can not access your account until this text message is entered. Once Facebook confirms the code you will be asked to name the device so you can monitor it in the future.
4. App Passwords - Certain applications like Skype use your true Facebook password to connect. This can be problematic for a number of reasons, and App Passwords allow you to create generated passwords for these outlier applications.
5. Recognized Devices – This allows you to view and manage the devices you’ve granted access to your account. This only works if you’ve enabled Login Approvals.
6. Active Sessions – This shows you the devices that are utilizing your Facebook account and allows you to end sessions for devices you don’t recognize. This works best when you have Login Approvals enabled but it can also be used when you accidentally login from an unknown location and forget to log-out.

The hardest part of securing your Facebook account is finding the settings. Adding layers of  protection only takes a few minutes and trust me it’s worth it. Just imagine the trouble you’ll cause for your friends when your account starts sending out phishing links. If you don’t like your Facebook friends enough to protect them, think about the harm you could cause yourself when all of your linked accounts are accessed. If these reasons aren’t enough to protect your account I would suggest selecting the last option on the security page, “Deactivate your account”.

Filed under: Security, Social Media, Technology Tagged: | Beginner, Facebook, Security, Social Media