Facebook has been in the news for a few weeks now, primarily because of the sudden security breach that it underwent. While the condition has just subsided and the rage around the situation has come to a halt, there are news that there could possibly be some other tactics resurfacing that could inflict harm to one’s Facebook account.
The social media giant recently accepted about the security breach of over 50 million accounts including the accounts of the Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerburg and the COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg. The new October hoax, however, which has stirred quite a lot of drama recently, doesn’t necessarily have any attachments to it.
This new fake message trend necessarily just started and has been going around for some time now in which the person in question simply just sends a direct message to the victim and tells the something along the lines of, “Hi….I actually got another friend request from you yesterday…which I ignored so you may want to check your account.”
Following that, the hacker asks you to forward the same to the other people in your friend list to ensure that other people are aware of the same.
The next message following that states, “Hold your finger on the message until the forward button appears…then hit forward and all the people you want to forward to….I had to do the people individually. Good Luck!”
The spokesperson for Facebook stated saying that they actually have seen some people sharing posts and other messages concerning the topic of their accounts being cloned on Facebook. According to them, it is more of a form of “chain main” rather than the common grounds of actual cloning behind the accounts.
With the security and privacy of Facebook accounts being a hot topic at the moment, we have shared some of the best ways to detect whether or not your account is hacked.
How to deduce if your Facebook account has been hacked?
Whether hacked or not, it is always best to be best aware of whether or not there have been any kind of suspicious happenings going on with your account. Whatever the situation be, it is always best to stay ahead of your game and ensure that there is nothing wrong with the account – hacked or not.
- First, visit the Settings section in the Facebook tab
- Then, click on the security and login tab which will provide you with an insight to when and where your account has been accessed. If you witness any kind of devices or location that is not familiar to you, it is best to simply flag the same so that the access can be retracted. Just select the “Not You” button beside and the same will be sorted out for you.
- Yet another factor that can help ensure whether or not your account has been hacked is to look for any kind of suspicious activities on your account. Be it posts that were not made by you or even other forms of suspicious friend requests.
- The last but not the least possibility showcasing a possible hack is if there has been unknown or random friend requests been sent to the other accounts from your account. Not just that, if you witness your personal details and passwords changed, it is possibly because of a possible hack.
How to protect your account from security breach?
Now that you are more or less aware of the possible sights that could detect a possible hack, it is best if you know how to tackle the same accordingly. Here are a few things that you can do to strengthen the security:
- Frequently keep changing your passwords with stronger ones for better security
- Enable the two-step authentication on your account which enables better security during login by sending codes to the phone for you to authenticate the same
- Make sure that the passwords you use are not same as that of the login details
- There’s a new option in which you can select 3-5 people from your Facebook friend list to contact in case you get locked out of your account
- Set up alerts for when someone logs in to your account from unrecognized devices
Facebook and any other social media profile have been under a lot of privacy and security threat since the invasion of better technology. It is necessary to keep your Facebook accounts in check and ensure that there are no suspicious activities lurking about and if there, take immediate action.
-Somapika Dutta
