Episode 3: Facebook - Identity, Privacy and You

Part of staying secure online is protecting your identity and assessing your privacy. Facebook can be a gold mine for identity thieves, hackers even pedophiles. Taking a run through your Facebook settings can prevent the dark side (Star Wars reference - ha ha) from showing its ugly head.

Assuming that Step 1, you've implemented a password similar to the one in red in Episode 1 and Step 2, turned on Login Approvals (Two Factor Authentication) as described in Episode 2, let's move on:

Step 3 - Friends:

Joe Hacker sent you a friend request. Even though he has 98 mutual friends, if you don't know him, don't accept it. Or send him a message asking how he knows you.

Also, if you have a friend already that sends you a friend request, it could be an impostor. Message your "original" friend and ask about it first. 

Step 4 - Likes:

Careful what you like on Facebook. Example, to like your financial institution shows Joe Hacker or the impostor above where you bank. Now they know what site to target.

Step 5 - Settings:

• You can do your own privacy audit by clicking the Lock at the top right and clicking "Who can see my stuff". Click View As underneath "What do other people see on my timeline." Right below the search bar, it should show Public and that's what the world sees about you.
• If you click the Lock again and click on See More Settings, you can go through each of those items and set the preferences you want to set. Example, there's no reason a privacy conscious person would want a search engine to link to their profile. 
• Your birthday - one of your critical id requirements on just about any form you fill out is your birthday. If I can see how old you are when your birthday comes up, I have a critical piece of your identity puzzle. Click on your page and go to About. Click on Contact and Basic Info on the left. Hover over Birth Year and click Edit. On the Year row, change that view setting to Only Me. 

You young people and parents of young facebookers, it's critical you go through these settings on your child's profile and make sure nothing is set to Public. It wouldn't take long for a stalker to find out everything about your child and use it that info to do harm. Also, kids don't think sometimes and colleges and employers one day will look up what they can about a person and make decisions based on what they see.

These are just some areas to watch out for on Facebook or any other social media site. Lurkers could be out there keeping tabs on you and you don't even know it so take a few minutes to go through every area of your settings and set them accordingly.