It seems like much of this past week was spent answering various questions about Facebook, so I thought I would pass along a few links to some of the posts I referred to in my responses.
Probably the most common Facebook question that I receive is how to prevent one’s account from getting hacked. And the answer is it all boils down to security.
With that in mind, here are five things you can do to make your Facebook account as secure as possible:
1 – First and foremost, it’s extremely important to create a strong password that’s easy to remember, yet hard to break.
Weak passwords are the number one factor in successful hacking attempts, so it’s absolutely critical to give it the attention it deserves.
2 – Another huge security risk on Facebook is having malicious games and apps enabled on your account.
The vast majority of games and apps are perfectly safe (and often lots of fun), but some of them are outright dangerous.
It’s always a good idea to do a little homework and research a game or app that you aren’t familiar with before you agree to enable it on your Facebook account.
It’s also a good idea to periodically check to see if any strange apps are enabled that you don’t even know about. This post explains how to check and remove any unfamiliar apps that you happen to find.
Of course not everyone likes playing games or interacting with apps. If that happens to describe you, it’s very easy to block ALL game and app invitations on Facebook. Just follow the simple steps listed in this post.
3 – A couple of other huge security risks on Facebook are links and videos that are spread via instant messages.
Unless you are absolutely sure that a link or video that arrives in your IM inbox is sage, I strongly recommend that you delete the message containing the link or video without clicking on them.
4 – Never accept a new friend request from someone you are already friends with before sending them an instant message on their old account to ask if they opened a new account.
As I explained in this post, hackers and scammers are cloning accounts right and left and using the fake accounts to scam and defraud the original account holder’s friends.
5 – All of the above being said, the single most effective way to protect your Facebook account from hackers is to enable Two-Factor Authentication on it.
All you have to do is register your mobile phone number with your account, then from that point forward a hacker would need to have physical access to your phone in order to log into your account – even if he knows your password!
Well, that pretty much sums up the most important Facebook security issues and how best to deal with them.
If you would like to read about several additional ways to prevent your account from getting hacked, I invite you to read this post.
Never miss a tip! Click here to sign up for my free Daily Tech Tips Email Newsletter!