8 Facebook Security Tips You Must Follow

8 Facebook Security Tips You Must Follow

Facebook recently reached one billion active users. That accounts for one-seventh of the total world population. Providing security for these many accounts is quite difficult. But Facebook has an amazing security mechanism, still thousands of accounts are compromised each day. This is not because Facebook is not secure, but because people don’t know who to secure their account and enhance their account’s security.

1. Picking A Strong Password

Most of us keep short and easy to remember passwords. But we must keep in mind that these passwords are easy to guess too. Moreover our near and dear ones can also figure out easy passwords. So we must choose out of the blue passwords and also a combination of small and capital letter, numbers and special characters.

2. Logging Out

I know everybody knows this. But doing this every time is necessary to keep your Facebook account away from being misused, especially on shared computers or public computers. Most web browsers automatically logs us out once we close the Browser windows, but some does not. Moreover you will not be logged out automatically if you by mistake select “Keep Me Logged In”.

3. Use a good Antivirus Bundled with Internet Security

Most of us use an Antivirus program. But an antivirus does not protects us from online theft and phishing attempts. For this you need to have internet security enabled Antivirus. Today most of the big Antivirus companies provide an Internet Security package in addition to the traditional Antivirus package. It is more costly but is a must to protect you from online scams.

4. Enable Secure Browsing (HTTPS)

The old HTTP connections are outdated and are quite vulnerable because they do not offer encryption. So Facebook offers the secure HTTP connection that encrypts all the data that is sent from your computer to Facebook and vice-versa. Anyone who gets hand on your data can not use or see it since it is encrypted. This can be enabled through the security tab.

5. Enable Login Notifications

This feature again should surely be enabled because this notifies you whenever some one logs in to your account from an unrecognized device. Facebook can notify you through a text message on your mobile device or can send an Email informing you about the login. Visit security tab to enable this feature.

6. Adding A Security Question

A security question lets you get access to your account even without a password. The answer to the security question must be kept secret as you keep your password. The answer should not always be true because most of the questions are related to you and the answers would most probably be known by your near and dear ones. So any one who knows you may be aware of the answer. This again can be kept from the security tab. NOTE that you won’t see this if you have already added a security question.

7. One Time Passwords

This is the best and least known security feature in Facebook. This allows you to get a One Time Password to log in to your Facebook account from any computer. This password is valid only for 20 minutes. You can get this by typing “opt” within a message and sending it to 32665. This works in US. For other countries see this list. This makes logging in to a public computer or in front of any one else easy and without having any security concerns.

8. Beware Of Phishing Pages

Phishing was the fastest way to know passwords of any body’s Facebook account sometime ago. But today, most modern browsers are smart and can detect phishing pages. But still some of them miss sometimes. Phishing page is a page that is designed similar to the original site in looks, but it sends your login details to the designer of the phishing page. To save yourself from phishing, always check the URL of the page when you are entering your login details. It should be “facebook.com”. Give special attention to the spelling too, this is because people are smart. They will keep the URL that resembles the original site, like “faceb00k.com” or “faccbook.com” so that you think the page is from the original site itself.

These were the 8 security tips I thought would be great to ensure maximum security for you Facebook account. To add your tip to this list, use the comment form below.