An old data gap is still a data gap, and you probably still need it pay attention when it has to do Facebook, a site that most people have used at some point. As you probably will already heard, a past data breach affect half a million Facebook users around again after a hacker released a large amount of personal information of hacked accounts. I eeven though the actual hack occurred two years ago, you can still take some precautionary measures to make sure this last incident occurs it does not affect you a lot.
To get started, grab the it’s time to check and see if your details, including your email address, phone number, name, and other identifying features, even appear in this violation. Try one options to search for different identifying information that may have been compromised:
If your phone number or other details they are not in the gap, great! You are good. If they are, you can’t do much now the information is out of home. On the plus side, yyou don’t have to worry about your password having been stolen, but this data I could be used in fishing (impersonation) attempts elsewhere, and possibly even in resets passwords or brute force input in your accounts, it depends on the severity of the service password recovery / reset mechanism.
That said, as this data has been floating for a while now, the odds are good, probably they are not affected if you have not already done so state affected. If anything else, the the whole episode shows the importance of using fictitious information whenever possible when you sign up for an account, especially on social media. The obfuscation is completely in your control. No feeling like you have to give up legitimate details about your life.
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FFacebook, which may include:
- Do not provide any optional information if not needed (educational history, wherever you have lived, interests, work history, etc.)
- Provide false information when asked, such as a false date of birth or a pseudonym. (Follow this in the notes section of your favorite password manager in case you are ever asked for your false information to regain access to your account or reset your password.)
- Use a fake email address (even a slightly modified one, such as [email protected] instead of [email protected]) and a phone number this is not your real phone number to sign up for an account. As before, save these credentials to your password manager just in case.
- Use a different “real” name or a slightly modified version of your name. Don’t use the same “screen name” or account name in all of your different services (which we’re all guilty of, no doubt).
Why does this matter? It makes it much harder for attackers to use information obtained from a data breach to affect you elsewhere. If you always use different information whenever possible between the various services you use, it will be harder for an attacker to socialize on their own; they you just won’t know enough about every service.
In the future, make sure you are up to date with all possible fishing attempts. If you receive a text message or email that attempts to convince you of its legitimacy by providing information (now readily available) about yourself, do not take any action on a service based solely about this message. Do not provide anyone else with any other information in response. Don’t click or touch the links if you’re not sure where they came from. Instead, pUpload your browser, visit the service directly and see if there really is one something that needs to be taken care of.