With the volume of data breaches occurring today, it can be a minefield securing your social media accounts. People tend to reuse the same password or variations of the same password for multiple sites, and who can blame you? with potentially hundreds of websites you have accounts for, to gets complicated very quickly without a decent password manager.

The purpose of today’s post isn’t to cover password best practices but the simple things within your control that you can do to protect and detect if someone attempts to access your FaceBook Account.

Using a web browser, login to your FaceBook account, and near the top right you’ll find a down arrow next to the question mark help button. Click the down arrow and you’ll see something like this :-

Click on Settings, and you’ll see a page like below. Make sure that General Is Highlighted (Top Left) and you’ll see your basic account information.

Memorialisation

Never an easy subject for many of us to talk about, but think about what you want to happen in the event of your death, click edit against Memorialisation and decide if you want a friend to memorialise and curate your account after death, or you simply want to account to be removed.

Security And Login

Top Left, Click on Security and Login to see a page similar to below.

If you have a See More item on the “Where You’re logged in” Section click it to reveal more.

Here you can see information of all devices logged into facebook. Don’t get too worried if you see a list, it could be the same device you’ve logged into multiple times. However be safe and Click “Log Out of All Sessions”

Change Password

If you think you’ve been hacked/compromised or simply want to change your password, click the “Change Password” section and follow the instructions. Don’t make the password easily guessable, like abcd1234, password1, child’s name, pets names etc. Changing a pets name is easier than changing your Childs when it’s compromised.

Save Your Login Information

Click this section to review which devices, tablets, phones, desktop/laptops etc that have your facebook password saved. Follow the instructions per device.

Two Factor Authentication

I always recommend this feature to be enabled. Yes it can be considered a nuisance, you if set up correctly you will know if someone is trying to access your account.

When you click this option, you will be asked for your password once again to confirm it is you.

Here you will be able to add your mobile phone to receive a message from to help you log in on new devices. Follow the instructions, you generally have two choices, send a code to your phone to allow access on new devices, use a tool like Google Authenticator from the App Store/Google Store. Both are free.

Authorised Logins

If not reviewed regularly as you can see you accumulate a lot of Logins from different apps. Tick the apps you want to deauthorise and click remove. I’ve done a clean sweep on mine and will set apps up as they need permission.

Setting Up Extra Security

Select this option to confirm how notifications are handled when anyone logs into your account, including yourself. I set them up as FaceBook Messenger, Facebook Notifications and Email alerts.

Choose 3 to 5 friends

Choose this option to select three of your real life friends that can help you take control back of your account in the event you get locked out, or someone changes your password and locks you out.

Your Facebook Information

Here you have a number of options related to your data, which includes downloading all your information which includes, posts, photo’s, memes links and deleted comments etc. Take a look around, requesting your data can take a while, but you will be notified when it becomes available.

Privacy

Limit Past Posts

Selecting this option will take all of your posts and set the privacy to friends only if you choose. This option can not be undone easily but will help you secure your posts to just you and your friends. If you have tagged other friends in posts this will remain unchanged and you’ll have to do this manually.

Face Recognition Settings

Personally not a fan of this feature in FaceBook, you can choose to leave it On or Off, I choose off, which in theory means the platform shouldn’t be looking and tagging pictures of me. It’s useful if you’re a celebrity or someones creating fake accounts for example. But just say no… really it would be easier if we all delete our facebook accounts altogether.

Apps and Websites

Check the Apps that have requested and have access to your facebook data either, now or in the past. Be ruthless and cull those apps that no longer need access to your data. Just tick the box and hit remove!

If you follow these basic tips, you should have a more hardened approach to your facebook and personal data.

Please feel free to comment below, if there are errors, or if something isn’t clear and I’ll try and help where I can.

Jason x