What To Do If Your Facebook Account Gets Hacked: Steps To Secure Your FB Profile
It’s annoying, but it does happen: it is common for many Facebook accounts to get hacked. With hackers dedicated to exploiting the most negligible mistakes made by users, situations of Facebook accounts being hacked have become pretty inevitable. There are also examples when a friend or family member gets pirated access and exploits the available data.
Security and hacking problems are spreading in social media. If you have a Facebook account or any other social media profiles for that matter, your data may have been hacked at some point. When it comes to Facebook for business, you should take the correct precautions if this happens to your account.
In one of the more recent Facebook hacks, personal credentials including users’ full names, birthdays, locations, email IDs, phone numbers, and relationship status were leaked. That means more than half a billion users’ data was compromised. If your security and privacy on Facebook is being infringed, you are required to take proactive steps to protect the information that is crucial to you.
Why Do Hackers Want Your Account?
There have been incidents where unscrupulous actors have hacked accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin other social media platforms.
It could be somebody you know, playing a practical joke. Or one anyone having a personal grudge out for revenge. In such situations, your hacker might deliver damaging messages to your social media friends (or followers you’ve never met), disclose private pictures or confidential information, or destroy all your contacts.
On the other hand, the objective may be more commercial (you might get extorted). The most common cases of hacking social media aren’t personal.
There are places on the Dark Web where anyone can get unique usernames by paying hackers. It’s something like a digital vanity plate. So anyone could hack your profile, lock you out, take it over, and sell that information to somebody else.
Confirm the Hacker
Not every hack is through places like the Dark Web. Maybe you forgot to log out of a non-personal device you were using and the next user accessed your account. Or maybe somebody was playing with your smartphone and scrolled through your profile.
If your account wasn’t really hacked, you can easily change your password and create a screen lock for your smartphone. We recommend enabling Two Factor Authentication on your account for extra security.
But if you were explicitly targeted, or your data was an element of an extensive Facebook data breach, you require additional security measures.
Can You Log In to Your Account?
Check if you can still log in to your account. Check out the last devices you have logged in from, and look to see if any are new and or unfamiliar. You can also review the dates to identify which of those log-ins were not done by you.
If anything seems doubtful, click the ‘Log Out of All Devices’ option in the lower right corner and instantly change your password.
If you can’t log in, it indicates the hacker modified your password, which means possibly malicious intent.
Ask your close friends to log in to their Facebook profile and check yours:
- Has your profile name, picture, or email ID changed?
- Have your connections removed, and check for recently added friends (or friend requests to other users) you don’t know?
- Are there unwanted posts you didn’t put up?
- Do your friends get any private messages after the hack?
Check Your Alternate Email ID Settings
If you have given an alternate email ID to get notifications concerning your Facebook account, confirm if this email address has not been removed or changed. If it has been removed/hacked, the hacker will be notified about your activity. If you don’t include an alternate address, add one immediately.
Change Your Security Question and Answer
Having an excellent security question is critical. Your security question should be impossible to know or guess, that is to say only you can only answer that. You will have to modify your security question instantly as someone may notice or change your answer.
Delete Spam Messages That You Find on Your Timeline
Look at your Facebook wall and message box for hints of spam messages. If you notice any, delete them and report them immediately to Facebook as spam. Leaving them ignored on your Facebook account could lead to data loss or much more.
Remove Unwanted Apps
Delete any unofficial or spammy applications on your Facebook account. Go through all the apps installed by you by clicking on Account Settings and then the Apps option. Click Remove Application for nonessential, spoofy or strange applications.
Change Passwords of Related Services
If you are handling the same password for other social media accounts or bank accounts, you must modify them. It is also recommended to change passwords that are identical to the compromised ones.
Stay Safe on Facebook
We are so used to social media platforms that we hardly consider what we type. Usually, our own activities and the details we share can put us in danger – not just from hackers, but also from real-life stalkers.
It might be time to revise your Facebook settings to make it more secure from people who could target you. Hackers are a serious threat for both personal and business accounts. Before you share a post, think twice and make sure that it is not putting yourself at risk!
These urgent steps to take will help you to safeguard your compromised Facebook account. This will also ensure that your privacy and security remains in your hands and hackers won't be able to misuse them in the future.
