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There is a lot of important and personal information in our Facebook profiles. Photos, phone numbers, addresses, and private messages can be used to steal your identity and possibly even hack your bank account. When there is a major outage on social media, many people start to wonder if their personal information is safe.
It’s always worth checking if you ever suspect something has gone wrong. And it’s pretty easy to do on Facebook and Instagram.
Check Facebook to see if you’ve been hacked
Luckily, Meta, owner of both Facebook and Instagram, has a one site for all your account information (accountscenter.facebook.com and accountscenter.instagram.com will take you to the same page).
Click on that Password and security and then Where you are logged in.
Here you can start checking your Meta accounts.
Meta can already warn you about a new login from an unknown device, which you can then mark as correct or not. You can also see all other devices you are logged in to and force them to log out if you want.
Here you can see recent login activity.
You can see where you logged in and determine if this was unauthorized activity.
Check activity and permissions
If you have a Facebook account, click on your account and choose Institutions. Under the Your activity section, select Apps and websites and you can see which people you have given access to your account.
The activity log shows your messages, connections, and other ways you’ve interacted with the site. These should look familiar. If not… red flag.
Here you can see the apps and websites you have connected to via Facebook.
This is important because even though your Facebook or Instagram account may not have been hacked, a partner app or website that you have linked to your account could be. Checking these lists and keeping an eye on your account activity will help ensure that nothing else is happening to your account.
Keep your account safe
If anything seems suspicious, change your password immediately. (On that Accounts Center site, choose Password and security and then Change password.)
If you haven’t already, it’s also a good idea to enable two-factor authentication. This essentially creates a short password that’s sent to your phone whenever you try to log in. It’s not perfect, but it helps.
Meta has a function in Password and security called Login Notifications which you can also enable. When someone tries to log into your account from an unknown device, such as one you haven’t logged into before, you’ll get an in-app notification and an email to any accounts you have saved.
Do you still think you’ve been hacked?
There is a common scam going around on Facebook that people call “hacking” but it isn’t. What happens is that an unscrupulous fraudster creates an account that looks like you or a friend, with the same profile picture and name, and then tries to friend the same people that were friends with the original account.
There is no hacking involved here, because the account of the person whose data the hacker copied has not actually been compromised. The truth is that this scammer is only trying to trick your friends into connecting to the fake account. If grandma accepts the fake friendship with your name and photo, they might convince her to give them money later, thinking that she is giving it to the real you.
You can report these people for fraud relatively easily by clicking on the three dots next to their profile name, the report option and then follow the on-screen instructions.
What to do in the Instagram app
Go to your profile, click on the three lines in the top right corner and click on the Meta Accounts Center. From here you can click Password and security and change your password, enable login notifications and two-factor authentication, and see where you’re logged in.
