Why your Facebook account got hacked and how to secure it!

You’ve Probably seen:

Help me!!! the house was broken into lastnіght, i caught the theіves stealing our stuff on our securitу cameras! Do уou happen too recognize them?  (Some link such as Tumblr)

I know it is the hardest thing to understand but when it comes to getting your Facebook account, getting into your account is the most valuable for them.   Most of the time it is used to mine data such as your personal information or so they can become you but that it’s always the case.   It is sometimes the case that a spammer wants to get those click’s from your friends and you be the one who gets in trouble with Facebook.   It isn’t always the case though.   More than anything hackers or some call the crackers want to get your account to make money somehow.  99% of the time that is the case the other 1% is someone who wants to just be a wise guy and show you he did it!

Well it happened!

You probably like the rest of the people asking how do I prevent this in the future first thing first.  You need to change your password on your Facebook account.  Once you have your account back you will then need to end all activity on your facebook account besides the device your logged into and that means you will need to update your password on all devices.   

The Easiest way to end all activity on your facebook account is:

Settings — > Account Setting —>  (Click) Recongnized Devices —> (Then) End All activity

Before you start putting the password in to all those devices maybe it is time to use a good Password manager to do just that, I recommend Lastpass because it is has everything you need to help keep hackers out of your account.   You should use a minium 20 character length and make it as random as possible.   This is what I have used to keep people from guessing my password although it is good way to help prevent Phishing attacks from sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets!

Setup a 2 Authentication factor!

In some ways this has been the hardest for people to understand and to want to use because it slows down people logging into their account but it also makes it that much harder for someone to get into your account because they have to know your validation code.   This will help you keep your privacy and security safe.  There is a great tutorial on how to do it, and I use it with the Google Authenticator myself!

Review your Timeline!

It might not be needed but you never know what the hacker posted on your timeline or your activity and you should carefully check it out from the time you thought you got compromised to now.  You never know what has been posted or said about your until you do a complete inventory of damage control.  Delete any posts that you didn’t do and remove those from your time line.   Just look for a little X on the upper right corner.

Finally Review your security Settings!

Go back through your security settings and make sure the hacker didn’t enable something that you might regret later on.   For instants your timeline being public or your phone number or something that you don’t want anyone other than friends or family to know.  There are few places where you should check and maybe change if need be and they are:

Settings —> Privacy Settings

Settings —> Account Settings —> Timeline And Tagging

Settings —> Account Settings —> (-)Blocking

You never know what the hacker did to either unblock someone or change something that you had put private.   So this is what I call damage control.   This will keep you safe and secure, but remember the only way to truly be safe is watching what you do online and keep that information private as long as possible.

How Facebook can interfere with your life and How to Disconnect from Facebook!

Facebook is so Popular!

When Facebook started in 2005, it wasn't really a big deal.   No one knew what it would be today.  You probably didn't even know about Facebook until two or three years ago.  I would even guess that you were pressured into getting an Facebook account.   Even though you should worry about your Facebook Security Settings, this isn't going be about that.   It however is going to be talking about how to Disconnect from Facebook!

Why Would I want to do that?

There will be some of you who will probably ask this one question and I could give you several answers but there is only one real answer.   Productivity!  Disconnecting from Facebook will make you more productive in anything you do and will keep your attention on what needs to be done.

The Extreme case!

You can delete your account and be totally disconnected from Facebook but that is the worse case scenario and I will not recommend that to anyone even my friends or family.  Although I've heard this happen it isn't the best choice for some of you who like to keep in touch with family members and share photos with.

Disconnect me Please!

This is a services and a plugin that helps block Facebook and others such social sites.   It will help you speed up your browsing and keep your privacy safe so I highly recommend Disconnect.me which was also talked about on Security Now.

Remove all Facebook Apps!

If you have a smartphone and a tablet, this is something that is a must if you want to keep from being interrupted and slowing down your productivity.   By removing these apps from all your devices, you will not get the urge to go check Facebook or have those notifications coming to you.

Finally Check Facebook Once a Day!

If your like me you will undoubtedly want to keep your account and thus you will want to at least check it once a day.   I suggest either morning or night depending on your work or sleep schedule to go online through the web and see what is going on.   I would however say the less you spend on Facebook the easier it is to keep from wanting to be connected with it.   So get on check and get off.   Don't spend to long on their exploring and playing games.    Remember why you did all this and you will be far better off then when you started.

Paul Sylvester

Facebook Security and You -- Why you Should update your privacy Settings!

Facebook Privacy and You!

Privacy for Facebook!

Who needs them? Your probably asking.  I know I am not one to preach about privacy but that doesn't mean you need to worry less about your privacy on Facebook.   It just means you have to be more vigilant 

Every so often Facebook likes to update their privacy settings and not tell you.   Either to add a privacy setting or take one way, more likely than not it is to try to keep you from being private but that is where you need to constantly be checking to see if you need to do something or check something in your privacy settings!

Check List for Facebook Privacy!

• How you Connect [See Above] -- This little one is good for people who don't want to have people constantly requesting them.  So if you are over sensitive to your privacy and security you should limit who can be friend you, look you up, or Send you a Facebook Message!
• Timeline Tagging [See Above] -- Figure out what you want to allow.  I know of friend who has made the choice to approve all tags of her from going public without her intervention.  I did the same thing because of my Ex-wife, she seems to be angry with me right now so I will not approve a tag unless it's true.  
• Ads, Apps, and website [See Above] -- occasionally, you will have a lot of apps wanting to control what you do on Facebook.   I usually try to do a little Spring cleaning of Facebook apps every so often and this area is where you do it.  It also lets you personalize what gets thrown your way.
• Block People and Apps [See Above] -- You know you have those annoying people who just won't stop harassing you.  So this is where you go to block them or unblock them.  You can also block certain apps or you can choice to unblock certain app requests.  Great little tool to keep your privacy safe from stalkers and other people!

The last part of this Privacy kick is who sees your posts, is it just friends or everyone.   You can change that here also whenever you decide you want more or less people to see your posts.   It however only go into effect when you start posting again.   All old posts are either only friends or public, so make you choice wisely.   You can however change that later on by going back and editing all your posts to what you want them to be either public or Private although you do that with each and every post so it will take some time.

I wanted to share some way to keep your privacy safe, I've not shown you everything but some beginner steps you will have to do become more privacy conscience.  You however should check it out every so often to see if Facebook decided to give you more options or to make sure nothing has change.  I try to do it every month but it is just me!  I hope this post helped you get back some of your privacy and keep your profile from prying eyes.

Paul Sylvester

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What is Whois IP/Snapshot Website Locked!

Seems People are having this issue with Facebook:

[ad#ad2-right]Although I don't know what could be wrong I'd figure we talk about what it it means.

Whois -- is a query/response protocol which is widely used for querying an official database in order to determine the owner of a domain name, an IP address, or an autonomous system number on the Internet. WHOIS lookups were traditionally made using a command line interface, but a number of simplified web-based tools now exist for looking up domain ownership details from different databases. Web-based WHOIS clients still rely on the WHOIS protocol to connect to a WHOIS server and do lookups, and command-line WHOIS clients are still quite widely used by system administrators. WHOIS normally runs on TCP port 43.

[Via Wikipedia]

So what does that mean?  It means that when your IP sends a request to the server to find the IP address of facebook and it comes back saying "Website Locked" meaning the DNS server you are using is being blocked.  You can however unblock it by using another DNS like OPENDNS.  This service would ultimately let you use facebook.  This is how to fix the problem for those who are having the problem.