Last Updated on December 14, 2020
As you and I know, Facebook has totally changed the way we connect with people around us and beyond. Someone will get up early in the morning and unconsciously starts his/her day on Facebook. A lot of people sleep very late in the night just because of a mobile app called Facebook.
When we talk about Facebook security, we mean those practices that control our experiences on Facebook. How conscious we’re with how we connect people on Facebook, how we login to Facebook and things we do on Facebook determine how secure we are and that of our online profile.
Last year, I presented a topic titled “Facebook as a virtual community”. This reflects that every activity on Facebook is a blueprint of what happens in real life. It could be making friends, sharing photos, reactions on friend’s status updates and photos, private messaging, shopping, birthdays, events, verbal fights on groups and pages and lots of other interesting stuff.
Now, how we manage these activities matter alot. In order to protect a house, you have to buy an iron door with strong key and protected windows. In order to avoid troubles, you learn to keep good friends. When we relate this scenario on Facebook, it is almost the same.
To keep up with Facebook security, you have to do the following;
- Change your Facebook name to your real name as seen on ID card, credit card, bank account or driver’s licence.
- Change your password to a stronger password.
- Enable Two factor Authentication.
- Optionally, add login notification.
Change your Facebook name to your real name.
Someone might be wondering why changing Facebook name to real name in the first place. There are several reasons why it is important. Talking outside security, real names help family, old days friends identify one another on Facebook. Facebook has made it compulsory for new accounts to be genuine with real names and phone number to help them when things go amis.
Now on security, real names help to restore one’s account especially when it has been compromised by someone else. Facebook requires that the victim submits a personal identification bearing the same name as on Facebook. The identifier could be ID card, Credit card, driver’s licence, utility bills etc.
When the names do not match, you may stand a chance of not authenticating your credentials as the real account owner.
Change your password to a stronger password.
Password is the most important aspect of every online profile. The better your password, the better the security of your online profile. That’s why most websites measure the strength of passwords during sign up. They encourage their users to choose strong password in order to avoid brute force attack. Check our article on how long it takes to hack one’s password
Brute force attack is a random attempts with variables that best describe someone’s online profile. These variables could be your profile name, nickname, phone number and birthday if visible to other people. These are generated guesses to see which combination matches with the victims password.
The best password formation is choosing a mnemonics that you cannot memorize so easy. It could be a comination of symbols, uppercase and numbers. The worst choice is using one’s phone number, nickname or few favorite numbers as password. Take for instance below.
Lets say cynthia is my name, born in 1996, favorite symbols are $, !. Then I can create a modest password as (YN$!a96 instead of cynthia96. CyNtH!@96 could work as a perfect password. Have a combination no one could ever thought about your password.
Enable Two factor Authentication.
It adds additional security layer to one’s Facebook account aside from the normal username and password. When you login to Facebook from a new device or browser, you’ll need to enter a special security code sent to your primary phone from Facebook. That way, it’s much harder for someone else to access your account, even if they have your password.
In Two-factor authentication, it means that you want to approve any new or future login apart from where you are currently logged in. Although, Facebook has multiple two-factor authentication methods but it all depends on which two-factor method is more preferrable than the others.
The best two methods are Text message (SMS) and Code generator. Text message allows one to enter and verify their primary phone number so that they can receive login approval codes usually a 6-digit code. Without this login codes, one cannot proceed with registering a new device to your account.
On the other hand, Code generator is used to generate login codes. These login codes become useless within 30 seconds. That means in every 30 seconds, new login codes are generated until one logs in. It works on Facebook mobile app for Android and iOS.
Finally, login notification sends you a login alert whenever there’s a new login activity on your account. To simply set these variables, click this link to proceed. https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=security§ion=two_fac_auth&view
We hope you found this guide very useful. Share to friends and to your favorite social media below.
Wants to get deeper into how Facebook Security and Privacy works? We have created a 45 page complete security Handbook. Click here to learn more and download your copy or visit our download page.
