Facebook Security/Advice on how to keep you and yours safe

Many of you are new to Facebook, many may not know so I wanted to remind you about somethings that you should know to help protect yourselves.

1)  To opt out of Facebook’s new profile sharing is a multiple step process: STEP 1: Go to the “Privacy Settings.” Go to “Applications and Web Sites.” Then go to “Instant Personalization and then edit settings.  An automatic check in the box below, which allows Facebook to share your information with other web sites. You are automatically “opted in.” If you do not wish to share this information, uncheck the box.

2) While on Facebook, look at your URL address: if you see http: instead of https: then you don't have a secure session and you can be hacked. Go to Account/account settings/ account security and select the box for secure browsing. Share this with your Facebook friends to reduce the hacking.

3) Remember anyone can make Facebook apps, so when using them, you are using at your own risk.  For example, the apps that you allow when playing games, anyone could have made that app.

4) Regarding privacy of what you share with people, first go to account then go to privacy, on top you will see view settings, click that link and set them to your preferences.  After that,  go back into privacy and customize your settings and choose what is best for you.   For me, I do not allow my friends to see much and I do not allow people outside my friendship to see anything.  If you go to my page, you won't find much information about me, you will not see a list of my friends, if you are not my friend you may not email me.  As of right now, no one is allowed to put anything on my wall, they are only able to comment to my posts.  I have chose to basically shut everything down for the following reasons:  When people are able to put things on your wall, it is easy to be hacked.  If people are able to see my birth date, my city, where I went to school  etc, I am putting myself at risk for identity theft.  I don't allow the list of my friends to be seen because if they do not have their setting set correctly, I am putting them at risk.
 
I would also recommend people stop using the check in options.  It is none of my business where you are at any given time unless you tell me yourself.  This feature is great if a person was stalking you, wanted to rob you, or burglarize your home or worse.  I would also recommend that you be careful on what you put on your status, for example do not tell people your activities of your comings and goings, again if you want to share, share when you get home.  Again, you may be setting yourself up for criminal activities.  The bottom line is, there is no reason for me to know where you work, where you went to school, where you live, the names of your children, the ages of your children, your age, what the year of your birthday is.  Please be careful on how much information you are putting out there, as you are not only putting you at risk, but possibly putting your family at risk.

5)  The most common ways to get a virus is by liking a link,   Never click on links that give shocking news, or states "I liked this celebrity until I saw this kind of link".  The most common ones are found with celebrities, animals, babies, weight loss.  So be very careful when seeing them and avoid clicking on any of them.

6) Spammers sometimes take advantage of a vulnerability in the web browser to try to trick people into clicking on links they might not want to click on. This is called clickjacking, and it’s done by overlaying the link with something more enticing, like a phony offer.

7) Spammers take advantage of another browser weakness by asking people to copy and paste malicious code into their address bar, which then causes the browser to take actions on those people’s behalf, including posting status updates with phony links and sending spam messages to all friends.

8)  If you find one of your friends have posted a link to your wall do not click on that link, until you have verified that the friend actually put it there and its not a virus.  If you are networking and really do know the person, avoid clicking on the link, even if you have verified the friend put it there.

9) If you see a friend,  putting out multiple posting on yours and other friends walls with the same link, that friend has been hacked.  If you are a person or knows a person who has been hacked a full virus and spyware scan would be required, then change all passwords.

There are many websites such as snopes.com or hoax slayer that can confirm or deny viruses.