Facebook has always been the center of controversy regarding the amount of access its applications can get for a user account. Many Facebook users immediately grant permissions to any application that they add, without considering the fact that it might obtain more than expected access to their profiles and contact list. Lately I have been receiving a lot of spam on my Windows Live account from my legitimate email accounts of my friends. About which they seem to have no idea as to how that is happening. I recommended two of my friends to remove any suspicious Facebook applications as they might be getting unwanted access with an email account mashed up with a Facebook Profile. It is worth mentioning here that when we mash up accounts between numerous services such as LinkedIn, a prompt shows up asking to grant contact list access to a service for a set time frame ranging from 24 hours to a year. Some of you may be surprised to know that the default time limit (checked by default) for LinkedIn is about 1 year. Many individuals simply click next without even noticing the time frame and respective message. In this post we will tell you how to find out if someone else is using your Facebook account and the steps that you can take to prevent your Facebook and associated accounts from being compromised.
Click on the Account option from your Facebook profile and click on Privacy Settings.
In Account settings go to Account Security and click Change.
From there you can see your account activity and check if any account activity seems suspicious. You can also check the “Login Notifications” option to receive email alerts whenever your account is accessed. You can enable Secure Browsing (https) to further secure your account.
Security Tips
Keep A Complicated Password: Keeping a complicated password is one of the best ways to secure an account. Many malicious sources use dictionary word combinations to break into an account. Keeping a password with digits, capital letters and combination of non dictionary words becomes difficult for malicious agents to break it. An example of a complicated password would be @ndr0!d instead of android.
Use HTTPS: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) ensures secure communication between your computer and a web server. Using HTTPS can provide encryption and secure identification for your Facebook sessions. For those people who might be having problems accessing Facebook applications due to HTTPS, can use the following extensions to enable HTTPS for Facebook and use it at their convenience.
Extension for Chrome: Facebook Secure Connection (Force HTTPS and SSL)
Extension for Firefox: HTTPS Everywhere
Avoid Public Computers: Avoid using public computers like libraries and internet cafes for logging into your Facebook account as any traces of your password may be extractable by people who use these public computers. Moreover, there may be certain software installed on such systems that keep a track of passwords.
Don’t Save Passwords: Avoid saving passwords by using default options like the Firefox Save Password option. Such passwords are easily viewable by anyone who uses the system and can be extracted by spywares. However, you may use Last Pass to securely save and login to your online accounts including your Facebook account.
