1.
Don't Click: Never click on a strange link, especially
if has a high number of likes on it. Attackers like to exploit the trust
between friends and family to their advantage. If a link comes from your friend
whom you trust very much, you are extremely likely to click on that link rather
than if it came from a stranger.
2.
Knowledge is power: Use your knowledge of
friends and family to your advantage. If it doesn't sound like them, it
probably isn't. Attackers love to post links posing as your friends to extract
personal information from your profile, which they then sell to the highest
bidder.
3.
Use Common Sense: Use the not so common 'common
sense' and think for yourself. Do you really think you can get an iPad for $1?
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't.
4.
Change your password frequently: Change your
password on Facebook, and change it often. This way even if someone does access
your account, they won't have access to it forever. Also choose strong
passwords that contain uppercase, lowercase, numbers and special characters
5.
Make your passwords secure: A very easy way to
do this is to replace all a's with @ and e's with #. For ex: apple would become
@ppl#. This is more secure than the previous plain password. Also you can use
more than one word in your password and you can capitalize the first letter of
each word. Ex: BhagwanMahadevIsAGod. Using the previous instruction it becomes:
Bh@gw@nM@h@d#vIs@God. You get the picture.
6.
Fake Emails: Don't be afraid to use fake emails
if you don't feel comfortable about giving out your real email address. Many
Facebook applications love to send you email so if you do get infected, this
will ensure your inbox doesn't get trashed. Even better, use a service like 10
Minute Mail to generate a temporary email address, and send Facebook email into
a void.
7.
Let your friends know: If your friends get
infected, don't be afraid to let them know it. A friendly reminder like
"hey, you know that you are infected with blah virus right?" if they
still don't react to your message after a fair amount of time has elapsed, use
your own discretion to remove them, especially if they become infected. This
will help to keep your stream tidy and infection free.
8.
Read the permissions page: Facebook applications
can do a lot of things like sending you email, post on your wall, send messages
to your friends, access your personal information etc but only if you permit
them. Make sure you know what permissions you are granting to an application
before you click the 'allow access' button. If you find out latter on that an
application is misbehaving, then you can disable it to discontinue the access
and you can also report the application to Facebook and they will take it from
there.
9.
Read the fine print: This is a no-brainer.
Always read the fine print if there is fine print, as that lets you know what
you're getting into. Many spyware have legally installed themselves without the
user suspecting anything because they didn't read the fine print. Don't let
that person be you.
The above tips should be able to give you a
decent amount of security on facebook. Besides these tips, you should also
manage the security settings for your profile properly. If you still get
infected, you can always disable the misbehaving application, but always
remember that prevention is better than cure.
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