Update 6/1/2011: Paul Laudanski has published an extensive guide to Facebook privacy, which is quite a remarkable feat since there is precious little privacy on Facebook :) Little privacy, but a whole lot of settings! Check it out at https://www.welivesecurity.com/2011/05/25/facebook-privacy
Facebook comes up a lot in this blog. Recently I wrote about the Hidden Face of Facebook Security and mentioned a new security feature that will encrypt your session so that you don’t fall victim to attacks such as Firesheep.
Initially the new feature was not available to everyone. It took a while before it showed up in my profile options, but I think by now just about everyone can use the
feature. You can enable a secured connection to Facebook each time you log in. This means that when you are using Facebook at your favorit
e public Wi-Fi hotspot your Facebook account will be secure. Unfortunately this option is not enabled by default as it should be, so you need to set it yourself and I will show you how. When you log into Facebook go to Account settings as shown below.
The next step is to click “change” to the right of “Account Security” as shown below
Now enable the checkbox for “Secure Browsing (https)” and you are all set.
This is a simple thing you can do to make your online experience a little bit safer.
Randy Abrams
Director of Technical EducationCyber Threat Analysis CenterESET North America
