Were you logged out of your Facebook account and asked to log back in, over the weekend?
There is a slight chance that you were part of the 50 million (fifty!) Facebook accounts that were ‘directly affected’. Additionally, Facebook precautionarily logged out 40 million other accounts.
According to an official statement by Guy Rosen, VP of Product Management, hackers exploited a weakness through View As, a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else. Currently, there is insufficient information about the details or extent of the hack. It may be unlikely, but you cannot be 100% sure if your account was affected, if the account was missed or if any information was accessed.
However, now is a good time to make sure you practice these tips on Facebook to protect your information online:
1. Enable multi-factor authentication on all platforms
Doing this adds a layer of security- a username and password is usually the first layer and then users are prompted for a second login. Users then provide additional information that only they have access to, such as a verification code sent to a phone number.
2. Log out of all other devices
Visit the ‘Security and Login‘ section in settings of your facebook. Scroll down to find the list of all the places you are logged into Facebook. Log out of all them with a one-click option.
3. Employ strong passwords
Looking at you all with 123456 and qwerty as your passwords. Choose longer passwords, mix characters and avoid assembling common words together.
A favourite XKCD comic is relevant:
4. Use unique passwords
In their security update, Facebook explicitly says there is no need for you to change your password. Again, there is no way to say for sure until the investigation is complete, but it likely that you don’t need to change your password. However, this is a great time to make sure you have a password unique to Facebook.