Getting hacked is one of the worst nightmares one can ever have (Atleast i have never been through one :P) especially when your facebook account acts as a login key to third party web accounts. It means, ''multiple accounts compromised''. And not only that, the hacker might have a personal deed and may decide to pull a prank on your friends or even worse. I personally know how easy it is to hack into any web account, that is facebook inclusive, and on the other hand, i also know how easy it can be to protect yourself :D
Below are a few TIPS to help you secure your facebook account.
1. Enable secure HTTPS connection
HTTP connection is totally outdated. It can easily be tapped or intercepted by a hacker and is extremely vulnerable to attack. As a result, Facebook now offers the HTTPS connection to ensure that all the data submitted from your computer to the Facebook server is completely encrypted. That way, even if there is somebody (hacker) in the middle who taps your connection, all that person gets is gibberish data that he cant even understand. You can enable HTTPS from your facebook's account settings.
2.Create a strong password for authentication
No matter how secrete your password is, it can easily be broken by brute-force, that is if you choose to use a short and simple password. If you don’t have a strong password to protect your account, then whatever security guides that you apply wont do you any good. The key here is to have a long and complicated password where complexity is the combination of lower case, upper case, numeric and special characters like symbols. for example..
.
2$k/Gp@?H$y8rQ?
A hacker would easily give up on such a password as it would take him ages to brute-force. So there you have it,.
- DO NOT use a password that has a straight forward meaning (that can be found in the dictionary)
- DO NOT use a phone number as a password
- DO NOT use your boyfriend or girlfriend's name as a password,. no matter how much you love them or else it'll easily be broken down.:P
3.
Enable login notificationEnabling the login notification will keep you notified when somebody logs in to your account without your permission.. So you can immediately kick them out fast and set a new password so that they can never login again. This is an extremely good feature which can be enabled for both email and mobile SMS.
4. One Time Password in login approval
One Time Password - is a two factor authentication method where you can enable all logins from unknown devices to use One Time Password,.. so as to ensure that only you can login from an unknown device. By making use of this feature, there is only one way a hacker can use to get your Facebook identity which is by stealing your recognised device and that is your computer or mobile phone lol.
5. Logging out from Facebook
Logging out from facebook is the easiest way of securing your account but it is the action that most people forget to perform. Whenever most people are done with checking and replying messages in Facebook, they just close the web browser and walk away from the computer assuming that the session is logged out. Unfortunately, that is a big gamble and not all the web browsers work the same. Some still retain your previous session even though the web browser is closed. Remember to logout.
6. Beware of Keyloggers
A
keylogger - is a spyware tool that runs secretly in the system and records each and every keystroke on the user's keyboard. In other words, whatever you type on the keyboard is going to be saved as logs, which can later be viewed with a log viewer or sent to the hacker's email address via your network. And not only keystroke capturing, keyloggers have additional features like,.. screenshot capturing, secrete webcaming & web activity logging. There are two types of keyloggers, Software and hardware keyloggers.
- Software keyloggers are usually downloaded as file attachments from the web, a single click on that file executes the keylogger.
- Hardware keyloggers are more like usb disks, they are plugged in manually onto the victim's computer via usb port. The most common place to find hardware keyloggers are Internet cafes or a cyber cafe rather.
How to Avoid and Bypass keyloggers
- Update your antivirus regularly though this will only apply to a software keylogger as hardware keyloggers are hardly detected by antivirus :P
- Develop a habit of using an onscreen keyboard whenever you want to enter a password, this will bypass any keylogger installed on your system. To access the onscreen keyboard, simply go to Start->Run then in the prompt box, type osk.exe and hit Enter! the keyboard will appear on your screen, then use the mouse to enter your password.
- Another way to bypass a keylogger is to fool it by shuffling your password when entering it lol. What i mean is...for example if your password is ABCDEF, when entering it, first type the letters ''AB'' and ''F'' then put the mouse cursor between ''B'' and ''F'' and type the letters ''C'' and ''E'' then finally put your mouse cursor between ''C'' and ''E'' and punch the letter D. ... haha lol then whoever installed that keylogger will never get your password correct. The aim is to enter the password without following the correct order.
7.
Beware of PhishingPhishing is a method of getting a user's credentials, i.e username and password with the help of a fake login page. You can find out more about phishing in my earlier article
here, To protect yourself from phishing, always check your URL or your current page address in your browser's address bar to make sure you are on the real or correct login page. And please NEVER submit your login details on any third party site apart from facebook. Stay alert!!
8.
Beware of HACK the hacker tools
These are simple tools that are developed with a quite convincing interface of hacking anybody's password with a single click. e.g facebook hacker pro, 007 facebook hacker, gmail password cracker, yahoo password cracker e.t.c. These contain two main parts, the noob hacker's part, and the victim's part. The noob hacker is prompted to enter his username & password followed by his victim's username ,.. with the belief that when the noob hacker hits Enter,. he will get his victim's password revealed,.. Well the bad news is that these tools are nothing but trojans.
What this tool will do is,.. instead it will get whatever was imputed or typed on the noob hacker's part (username and password) & send it silently to the real HACKER's email address via a network connection, hence the noob hacker has been HACKED!!! :P:P:P
Therefore if you have been searching for a software on the internet to hack your friend with, i suggest that you stop now or you will only get yourself hacked. For now it is impossible to hack into facebook or any other account with a single click, the only way is by doing the manual work yourself.
9. Update your System Regularly
Updating your system regularly is one of the effective ways to get rid of malicious tools or spyware programs that may have patched up your system. Remember, there is nothing like 100% secure, change your passwords like a ladies underwear. Update your antivirus and do a regular scan. But please do not trust your antivirus too much lol. Some of these tool are deadly and completely FUD (Fully Undetectable). Just combine with the above knowledge and you are safe :D:D:D
