Have you been contacted by friends and acquaintances lately that you’ve been posting some pretty bad stuff on Facebook? It’s quite possible that your account has been hacked. So what do you do? A lot of people tell you – change your password! That’s true, but not the first thing you need to do. Here’s the right procedure (all of these screenshots are on the Security settings page on Facebook):

Open your Security Settings

First thing, go into your Security Settings –  this is where you’ll do all the work.

Log off of every Facebook session

In the Settings and Privacy window, there are a bunch of menu options. Go to “Security and Login”. The session on the computer / smartphone you’re working with is the “Active Now” session. Log out of ALL the other sessions, because if you change your password like people told you to do, you’re changing it for the hacker as well while they’re still logged in! Kick them out first, and then change the password.

Change your Password now

Now, go in and update your password – if you forgot your password, you can send a reset link to your email address.

Now you’ve logged the hacker out, and are now the only one with this password. The next thing you need to do is protect this account using two-factor authentication.

Protect your account access

With two-factor authentication, you can have your smartphone send you a text code to allow you to access if you’re logging on from your computer. If someone is still successful at getting your password in the future, they don’t have your smartphone and will be locked out. 

You can also set up alerts for unrecognized devices or browsers which is a sign that someone might have gotten in (then go back to step 1).

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