Facebook user? 7 tips to secure your account to ensure you don't get nasty shocks

Facebook has been looking to ensure users follow a stringent pattern to secure account.

Data breach concerns have been rocking Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook for quite some time. Photo: Pixabay

Are you a Facebook user? You might not be aware, but your personal details like your bank account, identity, monthly income, day-to-day movement in financials, loans, savings, investments, chats, messages and much more are not just privy to you alone. Your bank, social media service providers like Facebook, Gmail, Google and government among others do have access to your data. But it is not alone their responsibility to secure your identity and details, in fact, some action is needed from your end as well. That said, data breach concerns have been rocking Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook for quite some time. This social media portal is a world in itself having millions of users and connecting so many more on real time basis.

In latest move, Facebook has been following a stringent policy to secure customers identity. Facebook has just removed 51 accounts, 36 pages, seven groups and three Instagram accounts that had links in Iran.

Talking about Facebook passwords, John Shier, senior security advisor at Sophos earlier said, "Despite the recent public struggles Facebook has had with respect to privacy and security, this incident is a little different. Authentication data is something that Facebook treats very seriously and has put in place many mechanisms, both externally and internally, to ensure that user credentials are safeguarded."

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Sheir further added, "This is also another reminder for people who are still reusing passwords or using weak passwords to change their Facebook password to something strong and unique and to turn on 2-factor authentication.”

Having said that, you can actually secure your Facebook account by following these 7 tips.

1. Protect your password!

Don't use your Facebook password anywhere else online, and never share it with other people. Also, your password should be hard to guess, so don't include your name or common words.

While creating a new password, keep in mind:

Your password should be easy for you to remember but difficult for others to guess.
Your Facebook password should be different than the passwords you use to log into other accounts, like your email or bank account.
Longer passwords are usually more secure.
Your password should not be your email, phone number or birthday.

If you get a message telling you the password you entered isn't strong enough, then you can try mixing together uppercase and lowercase letters. You can also make the password more complex by making it longer with a phrase or series of words that you can easily remember, but no one else knows.

2. Never share login information:

Firstly, scammers may create fake websites that look like Facebook and ask you to login with your email and password. Hence, always check the website's URL before you enter your login information. When in doubt, type www.facebook.com into your browser to get to Facebook.

Also, don't forward emails from Facebook to other people, since they may have sensitive information about your account.

3. Log out of Facebook when used on computer!

It is advisable to log out of Facebook from a computer which you share with other people as well. What happens is that, your account will remain logged in and anyone can access the portal.

If you forget, then you can always choose the log out remotely option.

4. Don't accept friend requests from people you don't know!

As said, scammers may create fake accounts to friend people. Becoming friends with scammers might allow them to spam your timeline, tag you in posts and send you malicious messages.

5. Watch out for malicious software!

A malicious software can cause damage to a computer, server or computer network.

Some signs of malicious software are - account is posting spam or sending unwanted messages, strange or suspicious log in locations are appearing or you see messages or posts in your activity log you don't remember sending.

On computer or mobile device, the working of malicious software will slow down your the internet service and show strange pop-ups. Hence, keep your web browser up to date and remove suspicious applications or browser add-ons.

6. Never click suspicious links!

One must avoid clicking dubious link even if they appear to come from a friend or a company you know.

This includes links on Facebook (example: on posts) or in emails. A user must keep in mind that, Facebook will never ask you for your password in an email.