Facebook And Security

Hello Friend,

So you were a victim of hacking? You hopelessly lost your account to someone who now misuses it properly or you struggled hard in the end to take hold of your account? If No, not to worry, this can happen to you as well, maybe next time when you enter your email id and password, Facebook may slap hard on your face that the entered password is wrong. Generally some lazy ash holes try to act smart by exploiting the loop holes in other people accounts, but in actual they are not really who are smart, but that is you who are really dumb. Here are some things that you may need to know to act like a Wiseman and protect your account.

1> Cracking someone’s password is a no child play. So you should realize that most probably it wasn't because your password was weak that lead another to hack your account. No.

2> So, if the password is not the weakest link, then what is?
Few months back my fb and 3 yahoo accounts were hacked because of a small but important security question loop hole.
The Question was: the place where i was born. I without giving much attention while creating the account filled it with answer "Jalandhar" which my correct birth place. Now here the fun part starts, if i had 410 friends on Facebook. Approx. more than 200 frnds know from which place i belong to and other details about me, in simple interesting words those 200 friends could have hacked my accounts anytime in no seconds.
One just has to go to forget password, and choose the option to recover account from security question, and you are doomed. Boom.

3> Well, not only security question is enough to bring your whole account down, if you had acted smartly while creating your account and had already linked your various other email accounts with your Facebook account, then probably you are still safe, because then your fb account can be recovered from any of the associated email accounts, Currently if you have only one email account associated, and if both fb and email account gets hacked, then there is not much left to recover your accounts.

Now when you are aware of few basic but important things, following are the ways that you must take care in order to enforce the security of your accounts.

1> Set your security questions wisely
If question is where you were born, or where your mother/father was born, simply fill your favorite hill station or vacation spot, so that it can't be easily guessed by anyone.
If you were born in Jalandhar like me, fill any place like Switzerland, Paris or whatever you like and make sure you make a note of all of your answers on a paper or on a notepad file for future reference.

2> Link your Facebook account(s) with your email accounts.
So that if one email account is also hacked you still be able to access / recover your account through the other linked email accounts.

3> Don't add unknown people into your profile. If there are at least three fb profiles added into your account which is being used by a single person, he too can steal your identity. Facebook provides the option of recovering the account by sending the codes to the three specified friends, if i have three random profiles in your friends list. I can go and put the three profiles for obtaining the codes, and then using those codes I can hack your account.

4> Add your mobile number to the contact information in account settings. So if anyone tries to infiltrate your accounts, you would be alarmed that very second on mobile and other linked emails accounts.

5> Avoid showing your email addresses in profile. If you hide what are your email ids, how would they hack them?

6> Don't use Hotmail or any Microsoft accounts as primary email accounts; they all suck in terms of security.

7> Last basic thing that i would like to suggest is you to make strong typed P@$$wo4ds only. They are the hardest to crack.

Your information is flowing online invisibly, if you don’t pay attention to it, eventually you are gonna pay for it. So Go ahead and make the necessary changes, before you lose your love letters, office/college project documents or your naughty flirty chats etc. ;)

Enjoy & Share.
Play with Technology, but DONT PLAY WITH TECHNOLOGY.

Nikhil Singh
MCP, MCPD, MCTS, MCITP

Worth Reading:
http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/tips-tricks/10-simple-tips-to-secure-your-email-account/