We said this in a previous blog post, but Facebook is huge. Almost a quarter of the world population is considered active on the platform. It has changed the way people communicate, and for better or worse it has become a major part of the lives of so many people. I?d be willing to wager that most readers of our blog understand that, for the most part, if you want to control your privacy online, you need to limit what you put online. At least, that?s a big part of privacy. Unfortunately, with mobile devices, location sharing, and machine learning, services are able to collect a lot of information that you aren?t directly giving it voluntarily. Let?s Recap – Should I Just Quit Facebook? We?re going to leave that ultimate decision up to you, but regardless of how you feel about social media and Facebook in general, there are plenty of pros and cons to being an active Facebook user. What are the pros? There?s the obvious stuff – Facebook is a great platform to communicate with friends, colleagues, and family. Facebook Messenger is a pretty feature-rich instant messenger with group chat capabilities. Many businesses and organizations use Facebook as one of their main platforms to communicate with clients and customers, either through Facebook pages or Facebook groups. Plus, businesses can run fairly cost-effective targeted advertisements through Facebook with better accuracy than most other ad platforms. The downsides? Privacy. All of the information we punch into Facebook goes to Facebook. It helps Facebook learn about us. Facebook watches how you interact with posts and what you scroll through. After hours and hours of this, year after year, like after like, Facebook really starts to figure out who you are, maybe even more than you think you are letting on. It uses this information to help target ads and curate the posts you see in your timeline. As we?ve seen historically, Facebook has also done some pretty shady things with our personal data. Without going too deep into any particular topic, here are a few quick examples to refresh your memory: Back in 2007, Facebook had a feature where companies could track purchases by Facebook users and notify their friends of what had been bought, often without consent. In 2011, Facebook was charged by the FTC for allowing private information to be made public without warning. Facebook was essentially letting third-parties access user information without consent. In 2013, Facebook had a bug that exposed the email addresses and phone numbers of 6 million Facebook users. In 2014, Facebook ran an experiment to see if they could make users depressed by delivering depressing content. It turned out that yes, they can. In 2015, Facebook decided that Facebook apps shouldn?t have access to all the private user data that they want, meaning it was pretty much a free-for-all until then. This leads up to the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal. In 2018, it was revealed that Facebook had a massive 50 million user data breach, knew about it, but did nothing until it started to make them look bad. The last few years have been busy for Facebook, and we?re only focusing on privacy-related issues, and not even touching on other, more volatile topics of discussion that the social network has gotten wrapped up […]
First, let?s log in to Facebook on a computer to manage the bulk of the security settings. Making Sense of Facebook?s Security and Privacy Options Log in to Facebook.com and click the little down arrow on the top right. Then click Settings. If you ever get lost during this guide, you can get back to where you need to be by coming back to this point. We?re going to spend quite a bit of time here. Let?s start with a little general housekeeping. Verify the General Account Settings are Correct Make sure you own and control all of the email accounts tied to your Facebook account. This is just good practice for all of your online accounts – every ecommerce site, every social network, every service you sign up for – if any account is tied to an older email address that you don?t check anymore or don?t have access to, you?ll have a hard time getting back into the account if something were to happen. Security and Login – Find Out Where You?ve Logged into Facebook Click Security and Login on the right. First, Facebook will show you all of the recent devices logged into your account. It will show you approximately where geographically the device was, the browser used, and when it was last active. Obviously, if you see something suspicious here, you should change your password right away (the options for that are directly below). Additionally, you can click the 3-dot icon on the right next to any login and log that device out. If It?s Been a While, Take a Moment to Change Your Password While we?re here, it wouldn?t hurt to create a new Facebook password. You should consider doing this across all of your accounts regularly (at least every 6-to-12 months, but more often for critical accounts like your bank and email). Just as a reminder, you can get there by clicking on the down arrow on the top right of Facebook, going to Settings, and clicking Security and Login. Make sure to never use the same password for two different accounts online. Enable Two-Factor Authentication Directly below the password options are settings for two-factor authentication (2fa). This adds additional security to your account in case your password gets stolen. Select Use two-factor authentication and click edit. Facebook will take you to a page that walks you through setting it up. From there, click Get Started. You will be given two Security Methods. We recommend understanding both options before choosing one: Option 1 – Authentication App – This lets you use a third-party authentication app like Google Authenticator or Duo Mobile to generate the login code. This is a little bit more secure, but it does require you to have access to the mobile device that the authenticator app is installed on. To set this up, open the Google Authenticator or Duo Authenticator or LastPass Authenticator on your mobile device. It makes the most sense to use the authenticator app that you use for other accounts, but if you don?t have one, and you have a Google account, use Google Authenticator. Then, from Facebook on your computer (see the above screenshot), select Authentication App and click Next. Facebook will give you a square barcode called a QR code to scan. In your Authenticator App, […]
Grab Everything that Facebook Knows About You First and foremost, you should download everything you?ve ever told Facebook about you. Of course, Facebook might know more about you than you?ve told it, and we?ll be grabbing all of that information too. After 2018?s Cambridge Analytica scandal, where it was exposed that a third-party Facebook app developer was selling the personal data of Facebook users, the social network vowed to be more transparent about the data they collect. We?re all for that. Facebook has even made it pretty easy to do so. We?ll provide the steps if you are on a computer first, and after that we?ll walk you through how to do it from the mobile app. On a desktop or laptop: Log in to your Facebook account. If you are on a desktop or laptop, click the down arrow on the top right and go to Settings. On the left, click Your Facebook Information. Facebook will present you with five options. Look for Download Your Information. Click View, Facebook will give you a screen where you can choose the date range and format of the data. Since in this case, we want to download everything, we?re going to set the Date Range to All of my data and set Media Quality to High. This means we?ll get a higher quality version of all of our photos and videos in the download. Click Create File and Facebook will start building the download. This can take a while, but Facebook will give you a notification when your data is ready for download. Once Facebook gives you the notification, click it and Download your data. From the Facebook mobile app: Tap the 3-bar hamburger icon in the top right of the app. Scroll down and tap Settings & Privacy, and then tap Settings. Tap Download Your Information. Leave all of the options checked, and scroll down. Ensure the Date Range is set to All of my data and that Media Quality is set to High. Tap Create File and Facebook will give you a notification when the data is ready for download. In my experience, it took Facebook about an hour before I received the notification. Also, keep in mind, depending on how active you are on Facebook, this file can get pretty big. For some it could be a few hundred MB, and in other cases it could be several GB of data. While we wait, let?s talk about the other options on the Your Facebook Information page on the desktop: Access Your Information – This lets you view virtually everything Facebook knows about you from within Facebook. It breaks down all of the data into several categories, such as Posts, Photos, and Location. Essentially these options just send you around Facebook to show you your information. This is nice, but our goal here is to own a copy of all of our Facebook data outside of Facebook. Activity Log – This redirects you to all of your Facebook posts and your Timeline Review. This is a nice way to review your old posts over the years, but this area only scratches the surface of what Facebook really knows about you. Managing Your Data – This area is essentially a glorified FAQ for managing your data. The page will ask if […]
Browsing Safely Many of the threats that will target your business? data ultimately rely on a user to allow them access to a network. Therefore, it is important that all of your business? users are familiar with the following concepts, and abide by them. Check URLs before accessing them. Cybercriminals will often disguise malicious links and malware downloads as something that the average user wouldn?t think twice to click on. For example: www.google.com – you?d assume this URL would direct you to the search engine, right? However, simply by directing it somewhere else, an attacker can easily catch your business unawares. Make sure you check the link by hovering over it, so that you can see the URL it actually directs to in the bottom of your browser window. Business computers should be used for business. Websites of all kinds are prone to hosting threats that can then infiltrate your systems when you visit them or download content. Encourage your users to stick to work-related tasks while using workplace devices. Restrict access to (and from) your systems. On a related note, there are tools that allow you to protect your assets from these threats, and can even prevent your users from accessing potentially threatening websites themselves. Firewalls and content filtering are both critically important for a business to enact. Rely on IT professionals. Never hesitate to call in an IT resource if you need assistance, even for the most seemingly simple issues. Preserving Data Your data is critical to your success, which means it needs to be secured. This includes not only the data that you have on your clients, but on your employees as well. To do so, it will help to follow a few practices. Keep a data backup. When there are so many possible ways to lose your crucial business data, you need to be sure you have an ace up your sleeve. A cloud-based backup is the recommended means of doing so. Leverage access control. It isn?t enough to simply secure your files digitally. You also need to make sure your location is secured, inside and out. Using access control solutions and various identity verification measures to protect certain areas of your business are key. Keep your security up to date. Threats to your business are always in development, which means you always need to be improving the defenses that protect it. New vulnerabilities are discovered (and resolved) all the time, so you should always be monitoring your solutions for available updates. Make sure you abide by regulations. There are many regulations that dictate how your business should conduct itself and its operations, like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Phishing Prevention Phishing is rising in popularity, which makes it all the more important that you and your staff know how to spot it and avoid it. Here are some ways to avoid it: Avoid excessively urgent messages. In order to push their targets into action, many phishing messages will try to inject urgency. The idea is, if the target is alarmed enough, they won?t look more critically and identify the scam for what it is. Check for key details. There are a lot of warning signs that a message could be a phishing attempt. Potentially, these could be spelling errors in what […]
Why is IT Procurement Important? In a nutshell, the most effective way to get value out of your technology is to ensure that each piece serves a purpose, as well as plays nicely with the rest of your infrastructure and solution set. To do so, it may help to examine what solutions effectively any modern business would likely need. Workstations and Other Resources In order to properly accomplish their tasks, any employee is going to need the right tools. In your case, that means that they will need workstations and/or the other technology that is most appropriate for their responsibilities – not just whatever you could get the best bargain on. Let?s imagine that you did settle for what offered you the ?best,? lowest price, without considering the value that you?d receive. Chances are good that whatever system you purchased, wouldn?t be able to effectively serve the needs of everyone in your organization? and that?s assuming that you didn?t just get a good ?deal? because there is something wrong with these systems. In this case, you?d have to pay more anyway to have someone fix your workstations, if not purchase more that do suit your needs. A managed service provider, on the other hand, would be cognizant of your business? needs, leveraging their connections with vendors to get you the most value they could for your money. Servers and Networking Once your employees have the tools that they will be working with directly, you will need to have an IT infrastructure in place that allows them to collaborate appropriately. Furthermore, this infrastructure should have the capability to expand to match any growth that your business experiences. While this all sounds fairly straightforward, it is actually a fairly difficult process – meaning that it should only be tackled by someone who understands how these solutions communicate with one another. Otherwise, there are likely going to be issues and potentially, downtime. If a managed service provider were to assist you, however, your chances of downtime would be greatly diminished. By offering both their professional advice and assistance in actually implementing your solutions, a provider enables your business to adopt these solutions much more efficiently. Software as a Service Once you have the technology you need and the infrastructure to support it, you?re going to need the software solutions that your industry demands to properly utilize it all. Now, not to make assumptions about you, but it isn?t uncommon for business decision makers to leverage torrents and pirated copies of the solutions they need in order to save a few bucks. These decision makers are making a bad decision by doing so, as it opens up your company to legal issues, unwanted attention from law enforcement, and diminished respect from the public. A managed service provider can give you a much better option than illegal downloads through a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering. Rather than dropping a huge lump sum on your software (and repeating this payment each time you upgrade to a newer, better solution), you can effectively subscribe to the software solution you need (along with professional support for it) for a consistent and predictable monthly rate. Not only is this easier to budget for, you?ll know that your team is working with the best programs available. Do Managed Services Sound Right for […]
