6 Tips To Help You Secure Your Facebook Account

In case you’ve been sleeping in a cave for the past few months, you need to secure your social media sites! Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat—they are all paving the way for hackers to access your personal information as well as that of your computer and network. Without the proper precautions and preventative measures in place, the security of your data is in great danger. Facebook, arguably the most well-used social platform in the world, has recently learned this fact the hard way—and reminded users that they need to be responsible for how they distribute their own information. Regardless of how you specifically use your Facebook account, it is important to learn how it should be secured to ensure better data protection. Here are six tips you don’t want to forget.

1. Always keep track of your devices: Real Facebook security means keeping track of all devices you use to login to the social media site. Under Settings > Security and Login, a section called “Where you’re logged in” can help you identify this. Check here to get the list of all devices (system, smartphone, tabs, and such) where you are logged in to your Facebook account. It’s always good to check here regularly and remove any devices you don’t recognize or are not using. If there’s confusion regarding any device, you can use the option to “Log out of all sessions,” which will reset the process.
2. Always control Facebook access through third-party apps and websites: There are many websites and apps that give you the option of logging in via Facebook. Yes, this often makes things a lot easier, as you don’t have to struggle with individual passwords, but remembering to revoke Facebook access for these third-party apps and sites when you stop using them is critical. To do this, go to Settings > Apps and websites, where you’d find the list of all apps and websites with access to your Facebook account. You can use this list to view and update the information the apps or websites can request and also to remove those that you no longer want.
3. View your Facebook information, manage activities: Go to settings and you will see a menu item on the left called “Your Facebook information.” All of your information has been brought together on a single page. You can view them by category and download anything you want. On this page, you can also view and manage your activity log and manage your activities in a friend’s timelines. This is essential to best practices of Facebook security and data security.
4. Use ‘Profile Picture Guard’ to prevent fake account being created: The recently added Facebook feature called “Profile Picture Guard,” which is currently not available everywhere across the world helps prevent fake accounts being created in your name. It is possible for someone to use your name and even your actual Facebook profile picture to create a fake account, to either facilitate mischief, fraud, or data theft. The tool “Profile Picture Guard” helps to stop this by preventing the sharing or downloading of your profile picture. This feature can be turned on by selecting “Turn on profile picture guard” from the list and clicking on options at the bottom of your current profile picture.
5. Manage Facebook data: Using the shortcut to “Manage data,” which is there on the Facebook Information page, you can select and manage any of your data on the platform. Thus, you can control where Facebook uses any of your information and can also manage your location data, face recognition settings, ad preference, and the like.
6. Make your friends authenticators of your account:  If Facebook locks down your account after detecting an unrecognized login or hacking attempt, you will have to go through the process of regaining access to your account. Good news—this process is now much easier. You can choose up to five trusted friends as authenticators, and if this problem comes up, they can help you regain access to your account. Go to Settings > Security and login > Choose friends to contact a trusted person if you are locked out, who can then send you the necessary verification codes to gain entrance back into your Facebook account!