{"id":3271,"date":"2022-02-21T11:14:22","date_gmt":"2022-02-21T19:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/?p=3271"},"modified":"2025-05-06T06:56:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T13:56:03","slug":"change-these-facebook-setting-right-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/change-these-facebook-setting-right-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Check these Facebook settings right away"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Originally posted February 2022, Updated May 2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve been receiving lots of reports from clients that their Facebook account has been hacked<\/strong>. In reality, usually it\u2019s just been cloned<\/strong>. Here\u2019s what\u2019s happening.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have a Facebook account, by default your Friends list is set to \u201cPublic\u201d – meaning anybody on the internet can see who your Facebook friends are. But miscreants and scammers can use this information along with other public information to impersonate you by creating a new Facebook profile – even with your public profile picture(s). Then they send friend requests to all of your friends. Once your friends become friends with the new \u201cyou\u201d, a scammer can persuade your friends that your original Facebook account was hacked and your friends are lead to believe the new account is really you. Scammers will then use your new Facebook profile controlled by them to have your friends confide in \u201cyou\u201d to obtain personal\/private information and\/or gift cards or other financial scams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What you need to change right away<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We recommend using Facebook\u2019s Privacy Checkup to review your settings, and make sure that scammers can\u2019t use public information from your Facebook account. In Facebook, go to your Account > Settings and Privacy > Privacy Checkup. In \u201cWho can see what you share\u201d, make sure \u201cWho can see your friends list on your profile?\u201d is NOT set to Public. In Privacy Checkup we also recommend going through \u201cHow to keep your account secure\u201d, and make sure that you\u2019re using a unique password for Facebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An additional step is to make sure that your only “Friends” can see your Followers – it’s set to “Public” by default. Check this setting by click the 3 dots near the top of your Friends list > Edit Privacy > Followers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\"Print<\/a> Print This Article<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally posted February 2022, Updated May 2025 We\u2019ve been receiving lots of reports from clients that their Facebook account has been hacked. In reality, usually it\u2019s just been cloned. Here\u2019s what\u2019s happening.\u00a0 If you have a Facebook account, by default your Friends list is set to \u201cPublic\u201d – meaning anybody on the internet can see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14,13,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet-tips","category-passwords","category-scams","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3271"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4105,"href":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271\/revisions\/4105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}