Facebook users are among the highest in terms of membership worldwide, which is why the site is also a favorite for hackers. They can be anyone who knows how to mess with other people’s information and may already have a working knowledge about programming stuff.
Spywares and keyloggers are also some of the hacker’s arsenals that can grab important data by keeping track of your keystrokes and acquire them from your computer every time you go online. These malwares are often downloaded from links.
Every Facebook user is susceptible to these hack attacks. Knowledge and awareness is our first line of defense. Follow these tips on how to guard your Facebook account from unauthorized access.
- Don’t let others see important details in your profile. Revealing your home address, email address, phone number, and other personal information about yourself not only exposes you to hackers but also to burglars, thieves, and stalkers. Try to limit people who can view this information because they can leave clues on your username and password. Do this by clicking Account>Privacy Settings>Custom>Customise Settings>Clicking on Lock icon> Custom and checking ‘Make this visible to Only Me’.
- Always sign in on Facebook’s homepage, not from links. This may sound a little too conservative, but it is more preferable than falling prey to identity theft. If you’re acquainted with phishing and other schemes that steal valuable information, you may try them out at your own risk; otherwise stay out from those links. A very tricky way to get you in is to let you log in to a “fake” Facebook page that records and stores all your keystrokes – your username, your password, everything. They also make Facebook widgets that look exactly the same as the real ones but are actually keyloggers.
- Make passwords that are complex and unpredictable. It goes without saying that passwords must be as difficult as possible to decipher. Birthdays, names, addresses, and phone numbers is a no-no. The strongest passwords that are virtually impossible to hack consist of a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. Have your own way of memorizing your password. Don’t write them down anywhere. Who knows, somebody might get hold of it and use them at your expense. Needless to say, never store your passwords in your browser.
These hackers won’t cause you any problems if you know how they do things.
Another issue that concerns Facebook users today is the less-liked ticker. Well, there’s no other way to get around this new feature except using a program that wipes it out from your Facebook home page. If you’re interested, you can search for Chrome Browser Extension in any search engine and install the Facebook News Ticker Remover extension. It’s the surest and the quickest way to get rid of the ticker. Remember to download from trusted sites only.
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Very useful and informative post indeed. Hope to see more of these..