Facebooks New (and only) Security Feature

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Identity Theft Expert Robert Siciliano

So maybe you used a public PC to log into your Facebook account and you hit a button that saved your login credentials. Or maybe you received an email from what you thought was Facebook and you plugged in your username and password and got phished. Now someone other than you has your account information and they are logging in to torture you or steak from your friends.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a degree of control over that?

Facebook just introduced a security setting that sends you an email telling you someone has just logged into your account.

The feature doesn’t protect you from being stupid and giving your credentials away, but it does give you an opportunity to log into your account and change the password and thereby block the bad guy from getting back in. But the bad guy can change your log in information too. All they have to do is change your email address. Once they do they receive an email at the new address and hit a confirm link. At the same time you will also get an email to the original login email gving you the opportunity to dispute the new account number. So if this ever happens, act quickly.

To set up and enable notifications

1. go to “Account” upper right hand corner

2. in the drop down menu to “Account Settings”

3. in the main menu go to “Account Security”

4. click “Yes” next to “Would you like to receive notifications from new devices”

5. the same can be done with text messages if you have your mobile plugged into Facebook. But don’t have your mobile displayed on your page publically.

6. Log out then log back in and it will ask you to identify the computer.

I did this on 2 PCs and a phone. It didn’t ask me to identify the phone, but it did send me an email:

“Your Facebook account was accessed using Facebook (Today at 8:36am).

If this happened without your permission, please change your password immediately.

If this was an authorized login, please ignore this email.

To change your password:

1. Log in to your Facebook account.
2. Click the Account tab at the top of the screen and select “Account Settings” from the drop-down menu.
3. Scroll to the Password section of the Account Settings page.
4. Click the “change” link on the right and follow the instructions.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team”

Hey Facebook, after 400 million users you are just getting around to this? It’s a start.

Invest in Intelius identity theft protection and prevention. Not all forms of identity theft can be prevented, but identity theft protection services can dramatically reduce your risk. (Disclosures)

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker discussing Facebook Hackers on CNN.