Have you suffered a digital identity theft and want to find out how to recover your Facebook profile? The social network provides you with a useful tool
With photos, videos, posts and notes, Facebook profiles (not to be confused with Fan Pages) contain and preserve an important part of our lives. That’s why suffering digital identity theft and no longer being able to access your profile can be a little bit of a personal drama.
If you’ve just discovered that someone has hacked or stolen your Facebook profile, don’t panic! Let’s see step by step what you have to do to report the incident and how to recover your Facebook account.
What to do when your Facebook profile is stolen?
Theft of passwords or identity (even if digital) is a crime punished by law and provides for rather severe penalties. For this reason, users who are no longer able to login to their Facebook account should immediately contact the Police (preferably the Postal Police) and file a complaint against unknown persons. By doing so, you will be protected from any possible trouble in case the hacker commits illegal actions with our name.
Secondly, you will have to try to regain possession of your account. Fortunately, the social network itself provides you with tools and features that allow you to recover access to your Facebook profile in a matter of minutes.
How to recover a stolen Facebook account?
In case of a stolen Facebook account, you need to report the fact to the social network and, most importantly, implement the account recovery procedure, so you can regain control over your data. All you have to do is access the page www.facebook.com/hacked and follow the directions given. As a matter of fact, after clicking on the above-mentioned link a message should appear in which you are allowed to start the account recovery procedure by using the blue button in which the words “My account has been compromised” are written. In the field “Current or previous password” it is necessary to indicate the last password used for access. In fact, it is possible that some malicious person has changed your Facebook password after hacking your account.
In this step, it is also essential to indicate the reason why you believe you have been attacked by a hacker, simply by checking one of the 5 options listed. And once you have done that, you need to click the “Continue” button and then the “First Steps” option. In this way, the social network will analyze the recent activity related to the compromised account.
Then the actual Facebook account recovery procedure will begin, which is characterized by 3 steps. The first one involves changing the password by entering a new one that has never been used before. The second step involves Facebook detecting some “suspicious” applications, which may have been introduced by other users and, in this case, must be deleted. Finally, in the last step, the recent activity with the hacked Facebook account is reported. In case suspicious activity is found, it is best to remove it. At the end of the procedure you will see the message “Operation completed”.
Cloned Facebook Profile: What to do?
It is not certain, however, that the person who steals your profile intends to just oust you. In alcuni casi, un malintenzionato potrebbe clonare il tuo profilo Facebook, usando tue foto o informazioni per entrare in contatto con i tuoi amici ed estorcere loro dati personali.
Se ti accorgi che questo è quello che ti è successo, cerca per prima cosa il profilo fake, poi clicca sull’immagine di copertina e seleziona “Segnala”. A questo punto segui le istruzioni che ti verranno date per portare all’attenzione del social network il profilo incriminato.
Come rendere più sicuro il proprio account Facebook?
Per mettere in sicurezza il proprio account ed evitare spiacevoli episodi, è necessario seguire alcuni piccoli accorgimenti:
- Scegliere una password sicura, non facilmente recuperabile. Per tanto è meglio che sia composta da almeno 15-20 caratteri e che contenga lettere, simboli e numeri. Inoltre, è sconsigliabile l’utilizzo di password troppo scontate o l’inserimento di dati personali, ed è indispensabile cambiare la password spesso e non utilizzare quella impiegata per accedere ad altri account.
- Attivare l’autenticazione a due fattori, che consente di inserire un’ulteriore chiave, che può essere generata con l’app di Facebook installata sul proprio device o che è possibile ricevere tramite sms.
- Attivare le notifiche per gli accessi non riconosciuti, in modo da capire subito se qualcuno ha tentato di collegarsi al proprio account Facebook, ed eventualmente prendere provvedimenti prima che si verifichino situazioni spiacevoli.