Five safety tips every Facebooker should consider

Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

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SALT LAKE CITY -- Ah, Facebook -- the reason questions like, “Whatever happened to that kid we knew in 10th grade?” have all but vanished from nostalgic conversation.

With over 500 million active users spending over 700 billion minutes per month keeping tabs on people they met “that one time” on a long bus ride, the world has become a small place indeed.

But when that many people come together to enjoy themselves, there’s always a few jerks in the mix who want to spoil the fun for everyone. In the Facebook world, that means clickjacking, Koobface, spammy wall posts, money transfer scams, fake notification emails or any other number of trendy attacks currently plaguing the virtual online community. There are many social networking threats out there, and there are many more on the way.

So how do you keep yourself safe from the malicious, while posting status updates or playing Scrabble with your “friends”?

KSL recently asked Fred Wolens, of Facebook Public Policy, about the best social networking security practices, and he responded with five tips every Facebooker needs to know.

Tip 1:“Review your security settings and consider enabling login notifications. They’re in the drop-down box under Account on the upper right hand corner of your FB home page.”

So what are login notifications? According to Lev Popov of the Facebook Blog, login notifications is “a new feature that allows you to approve the devices you commonly use to log in and then to be notified whenever your account is accessed from a device you haven't approved.“

Popov goes onto explain that when you sign up for the feature, you’ll be asked which devices you commonly use to access Facebook. If someone logs in from a device different from your list, you’ll be immediately notified either through email or text, and you’ll also be given options to reset your password or block the unwanted device.

Tip 2:"Don't click on strange links, even if they're from friends, and notify the person if you see something suspicious.”

Evan Wondrasek of Makeuseof.com noted that “It’s natural to be curious when somebody tags a photo of you, so your first instinct is to click the link before thinking about where it will be taking you. The bad stuff happens after you’ve clicked the link.”

The best practice when you see something out of the ordinary, like your name being tagged on a photo that clearly has nothing to do with you, is just notify the person who posted it. Don’t click it, don’t try to “untag” yourself, definitely don’t install the latest version of whatever software it tells you is needed to view the link, just report it and move on.

This actually brings us to our next tip.

Tip 3:“Don’t download any applications you aren’t certain about.”

Facebook handed over a tremendous amount of responsibility to its users when they allowed third party applications. Sure, part of the fun of Facebook is playing games with your friends and creating a list of relatives, but applications go almost completely unchecked by the Facebook staff.

This may be the reason Wolens told us, “We recommend scrutinizing any time an app asks for your data to make sure you are granting permission for exactly what you intend. Please report any apps that are suspicious.”

Tip 4:“Don't click on friend requests from unknown parties.”

“Ghost accounts” became big news when Yahoo Sports reported on NFL teams creating fake Facebook accounts in an effort to "friend" and ultimately gain access to personal information from unsuspecting draft picks. Since then, CNN and other news outlets have asked the question, what additional information is being collected from fictitious friend accounts?

For obvious reasons, there’s no hard data to suggest how big of a threat this really is, but make it a rule to only “friend” people who are actually your friends, and this shouldn’t be an issue you have to worry about.

Tip 5:“For using Facebook from places like hotels and airports, text 'otp' to 32665 for a one-time password to your account.”

Even if you’re not worried about open, public networks (you should be), your inner-geek has to admit this is a cool idea. An anonymous, cryptic password that can only be used once is beamed directly to you from Facebook HQ just in case a sinister, shadowy figure is watching your every move. No really, you have to try this at least once.

If you found these tips interesting, or if you’d like to continue your own research on social networking safety, the people of facebook suggest you visit http://www.facebook.com/security.