SECURE YOUR ACCOUNTS • FACEBOOK

Protect your Facebook account. Control your information.

Follow the steps below to strengthen account security, reduce unnecessary exposure and review who or what has access to your Facebook account.

Privacy and security are connected—but they are not the same.

Privacy settings help control who can see information about you. Security settings help protect who can access your account.

Work through both. A private profile is not enough if someone else can still sign in to the account.

Why start with two-factor authentication?
A strong password is important, but adding another authentication factor can make account takeover more difficult when a password is exposed.
What should I never share?
Never give another person your Facebook password, one-time authentication code, recovery code or other account secret. Legitimate support should not require you to hand over these credentials.
FACEBOOK SECURITY CHECKLIST

Work through these settings one at a time.

Open a section to see the practical steps. After making a change, use the verification point to confirm that the protection is actually active.

Turn on two-factor authentication

Add another layer of protection so a stolen password is less likely to be enough to access your account.
Click to see protection steps
Step-by-step
  1. Open Facebook and sign in normally.
  2. Open Menu, then go to Settings & privacy and Settings.
  3. Open Accounts Center if it is shown in your account settings.
  4. Find Password and security.
  5. Select Two-factor authentication and choose your Facebook account.
  6. Choose an available authentication method and follow the instructions.
  7. Complete the verification process.
  8. Return to the two-factor authentication settings and confirm that your chosen method is active.
VERIFY

Your selected two-factor authentication method should be shown as enabled or active in your account security settings.

Important: Facebook may change the location or wording of settings over time. If your screen looks different, use Facebook's official settings and help resources rather than following an instruction from an unknown person.

Check who can see your posts

Control the audience for your future posts and review whether older posts are more public than you intended.
Click to see protection steps
Step-by-step
  1. Open Facebook and go to Settings & privacy.
  2. Open Settings.
  3. Look for the Audience and visibility section.
  4. Open the settings for Posts.
  5. Review who can see your future posts.
  6. Choose an audience that matches what you are comfortable sharing.
  7. Review the available option for limiting the audience of older posts if you need it.
  8. Before publishing something sensitive, check the audience selector on the post itself.
VERIFY

Before publishing a new post, confirm that the audience shown beside the post is the audience you intended.

Important: Facebook may change the location or wording of settings over time. If your screen looks different, use Facebook's official settings and help resources rather than following an instruction from an unknown person.

Review your personal information

Reduce unnecessary exposure of information such as your phone number, email address, birthday and other profile details.
Click to see protection steps
Step-by-step
  1. Open your Facebook profile.
  2. Review the information currently displayed on your profile.
  3. Identify information that strangers do not need to see.
  4. Use the available audience controls for individual profile details.
  5. Review your contact information and remove or restrict information you no longer need to display.
  6. Check the profile from a public-view or privacy-preview option when available.
VERIFY

View your profile as someone who is not your friend, where Facebook provides that option, and check what personal information remains visible.

Important: Facebook may change the location or wording of settings over time. If your screen looks different, use Facebook's official settings and help resources rather than following an instruction from an unknown person.

Control who can see your friends list

Your friends list can reveal relationships that scammers may use for impersonation or social engineering.
Click to see protection steps
Step-by-step
  1. Open Facebook Settings & privacy.
  2. Open Settings.
  3. Find the audience or privacy settings related to how people find and contact you.
  4. Locate the friends-list visibility setting.
  5. Choose the audience you are comfortable with.
  6. Review the setting again after saving the change.
VERIFY

Confirm that the selected audience matches the privacy level you intended for your friends list.

Important: Facebook may change the location or wording of settings over time. If your screen looks different, use Facebook's official settings and help resources rather than following an instruction from an unknown person.

Control tagging and timeline activity

Review how tags and other people's posts can appear on your profile.
Click to see protection steps
Step-by-step
  1. Open Facebook Settings & privacy.
  2. Open Settings.
  3. Find the Profile and tagging settings.
  4. Review who can post on your profile.
  5. Review who can see posts you are tagged in on your profile.
  6. Review the option for reviewing posts you are tagged in before they appear on your profile, where available.
  7. Review tag-review settings and enable the controls that match your preference.
VERIFY

Check the Profile and tagging settings and confirm that the review controls you wanted are enabled.

Important: Facebook may change the location or wording of settings over time. If your screen looks different, use Facebook's official settings and help resources rather than following an instruction from an unknown person.

Check where your account is logged in

Review active sessions and investigate devices or locations you do not recognize.
Click to see protection steps
Step-by-step
  1. Open Facebook Settings & privacy.
  2. Open Settings.
  3. Go to Accounts Center if it is available.
  4. Open Password and security.
  5. Find the section for where you are logged in or active sessions.
  6. Review the listed devices and sessions.
  7. If you recognize a session, leave it alone unless you want to sign out.
  8. If you do not recognize a session, sign it out and investigate the account.
VERIFY

After signing out an unfamiliar session, return to the active-session list and confirm that it is no longer active.

Important: Facebook may change the location or wording of settings over time. If your screen looks different, use Facebook's official settings and help resources rather than following an instruction from an unknown person.

Review connected apps and websites

Third-party applications can have access to information from your Facebook account.
Click to see protection steps
Step-by-step
  1. Open Facebook Settings & privacy.
  2. Open Settings.
  3. Look for the Apps and websites or connected-apps area.
  4. Review applications and websites currently connected to your account.
  5. Identify services you no longer use or do not recognize.
  6. Remove access where appropriate.
  7. Before removing access, consider whether you still use the service and whether it may affect your ability to sign in.
VERIFY

Return to the connected-app list and confirm that unnecessary or unwanted services no longer appear as connected.

Important: Facebook may change the location or wording of settings over time. If your screen looks different, use Facebook's official settings and help resources rather than following an instruction from an unknown person.

Review your recovery information

Make sure the email addresses and phone numbers associated with account recovery are still under your control.
Click to see protection steps
Step-by-step
  1. Open your account settings and find the personal or account information section.
  2. Review the email addresses associated with your account.
  3. Review the phone numbers associated with your account.
  4. Remove outdated contact information where appropriate.
  5. Make sure important recovery methods belong to you and are still accessible.
  6. Do not add a recovery method simply because someone contacting you tells you to.
VERIFY

Confirm that the recovery contact information belongs to you and that you can access it if Facebook requires verification.

Important: Facebook may change the location or wording of settings over time. If your screen looks different, use Facebook's official settings and help resources rather than following an instruction from an unknown person.

Review login and security alerts

Security notifications can help you notice unusual account activity sooner.
Click to see protection steps
Step-by-step
  1. Open Facebook security settings.
  2. Review the available login-alert or security-notification options.
  3. Enable appropriate notifications where available.
  4. Check recent security activity if Facebook provides it.
  5. Investigate activity that you do not recognize.
  6. If you find suspicious activity, stop treating it as a routine privacy setting and move to the recovery guidance.
VERIFY

Confirm that the security or login notification option you selected is active.

Important: Facebook may change the location or wording of settings over time. If your screen looks different, use Facebook's official settings and help resources rather than following an instruction from an unknown person.

Something does not look right?

If you find an unfamiliar login, changed recovery information, unexpected security alerts or another sign that someone may have accessed your account, stop the normal security check and move to the recovery process.

I think my account is compromised →
Still need help?

If you have worked through the relevant settings and something still looks wrong, do not give your security secrets to someone promising to fix the account. Use the service's official support and recovery resources for service-specific account problems.

For broader cybersecurity problems, you can also use the professional assistance pathway on this platform.

Need Professional Help? →
Facebook security is not a one-time task.

Review important account settings periodically, especially after a password change, device change, suspicious message or unexpected login alert.

VERIFY BEFORE YOU TRUST.

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