If you want to keep your online reputation and Facebook account secure, then keep reading to learn 6 steps and tips you can take to accomplish just that:
1) Log Out Every Time
When you don’t log out, your account can be easily hacked. If there’s a possibility that someone else might use your computer, log out when you’re finished.
2) Set Up Secure Browsing
HTTPS, or secure browsing, is an excellent security feature because it encrypts any Facebook activity when it’s possible to do so, so it’s harder for someone else to access any of your Facebook information without your knowledge or permission.
If you want to alter your settings to enable secure browsing using HTTPS, go into your Security Settings section and then click on Secure Browsing. Check the provided box before saving your changes.
In Chrome, you’ll know browsing is secure from the left side of the URL or address bar, which should have a lock icon, the word ‘Secure’, and ‘https://’ all in light green. Other browsers are similar.
3) Enable Notifications For Logins
Facebook describes login notifications. It claims that this option is an additional security feature. If you turn them on, Facebook sends you alerts every time there’s a login on your account from a place that’s new to Facebook’s servers.
If you want to turn them on, go into your Security Settings. Then, you click on the section titled Login Notifications. Following that, check the specific box for the kind of alerts you want to get. Save your changes to complete the process.
4) Delete Your Email Address In Your Profile
Your email address also serves as the username you have on Facebook, so you need to alter your privacy settings so that your login email address is hidden from your public profile. Not sure how to do this? Login to Facebook, and then go to your About page. Find the section for Contact Information and then click on the Edit button. Find your email address Facebook uses for logging in, and then click on the downward arrow right beside the Lock icon. Put a checkmark by Only Me. Then, click on the downward arrow to the right, placing another checkmark by Hidden From Timeline.
5) Make Your Password Unguessable
One of the smartest Facebook security ideas you can try is creating a robust password. If you create a password that is truly random, you’ll dramatically decrease your odds of a software package or even a live person cracking your password.
If you want to make it unguessable, you need to make it a random string of characters, such as “!#%&()*%#@$” and the longer you make it, the better. A computer might eventually figure out that password in a brute force attempt, but the difficulty rises with every additional character you add to the password. Even if a computer tried a billion passwords every second, it could take it years to look at every combination of something with more than a dozen random characters. A text-only password shorter than that can be cracked in just months.
6) Enable The Option For Login Approvals By Cell Phone
Login approvals have an additional security step compared to login notifications, but they’re similar in nature. If you turn login approvals on, then you get asked to enter a specialized login code every time you attempt access to your Facebook account from a new device, be it a different phone or computer. Once you log in, you’re given the choice of naming that device to save it onto your account information. It’s only necessary to do this once per device, and that device then becomes one of your designated, recognized devices.
If you want to know more about cyber security, then read this piece from Barclay Simpson.
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