Lately I have received numerous messages from my readers, who have asked me how to spy on a Facebook profile. Many of them have asked me this question, motivated by the desire to understand how cybercriminals can “puncture” their victims’ accounts, in order to know how to defend themselves against such intrusions. Given that the topic affects many users, and from what I understand you, how about if we take advantage of the situation to deepen the topic together? If your answer is affirmative, give me five minutes of your free time and let me clarify your ideas a bit.

In the next paragraphs, I will show you what are the most common techniques that the attackers exploit to spy on Facebook users talking to you about some common mistakes that must be avoided in order not to facilitate the work of the bad guys. Then I will show you how you can make your profile more secure by taking measures of security on the most popular social network in the world, including alerts for unauthorized access and two-factor authentication.

I assure you: even if, as I understand, you are not yet very familiar with the world of technology, at the end of the tutorial you will have clear ideas on Facebook, its security systems and techniques used by crackers (hackers ” bad guys “who use their computer skills to the detriment of others) to violate user accounts. Courage, get comfortable, take all the time you need to read the information in the next paragraphs and implement the “tips” that I will give you: your privacy will certainly benefit.

Mistakes to avoid for not being spied on Facebook

In order how to spy on a Facebook profile, it is important to avoid mistakes that, if committed, can seriously compromise your privacy and security. It would be enough to avoid just some of these very common mistakes to significantly lower the chances of being spied on the famous social network of Mark Zuckerberg.

Use an unsafe password

Using an unsafe password is one of the biggest mistakes you can make and one of the most dangerous, since it could greatly facilitate the “work” of cybercriminals. A password can be considered unsafe when, for example, it is too short, when it is easy to understand why it contains a sequence of numbers or letters (eg “123456” or “qwertyuiop”) or when it contains personal information such as your date of birth , the date of your wedding anniversary or the name of a family member.

If you believe that the password currently set on your Facebook account is unsafe, change it immediately and replace it with a stronger one. If possible, use an access key that consists of at least 15 characters, which contains alphanumeric characters and symbols and, another aspect that should not be underestimated, use one that you have not already used for other accounts. In addition, to further increase the security level of your account, I suggest you change your password frequently: do it at least once every 30-40 days.

Another “straight” that you have to do is to keep the password of your Facebook account in a safe “place”, maybe a good password manager like 1Password or LastPass (I’ve already told you in several tutorials, like the one in which I explain how to manage password).

Please do not make the mistake of saving your password in the browser of your PC, since a cracker would not take long to find it and use it to access your Facebook account without permission. If you remember I have already given a practical demonstration of how easy it is to recover the passwords saved in the browser database in a special tutorial. As comfortable as this kind of solutions may seem, stay away!

Lend your devices to others

How to spy on a Facebook profile

Lending your device to other users, especially to people you do not know, is another mistake that you absolutely must avoid if you do not want to risk spying on Facebook. Many crackers, in fact, use the so-called “social engineering” to access the device of their potential victims and take advantage of the opportunity to capture confidential information or, even worse, to install keyloggers or app-spy through which access the device from remote and control everything that the user does with it.

How do these cybercriminals convince the user to lend him a device? They usually make a convincing excuse – for example by asking them to make an “urgent” phone call – and if the user falls into the trap, they take advantage of the few minutes available to them to implement the diabolical plan they have studied at home.

If you want to defend yourself from this effective hacking technique, do not lend your devices to strangers, to people who do not seem to recommend you or to acquaintances in which you do not trust absolute confidence: ignoring this advice you risk to drive you into serious trouble, believe me.

Access public Wi-Fi networks

Accessing public Wi-Fi networks is another mistake you should avoid if how to spy on a Facebook profile. As everyone knows, public Wi-Fi networks are very vulnerable to cyber attacks and are often used by cybercriminals to “sniff out” data from unfortunate users. For this reason, when you are away from home, log in to your Facebook account using your operator’s 3G or 4G / LTE connection or, if available, connected to a secure Wi-Fi network.

Accept friend requests from perfect strangers

Another mistake that many users make is to accept friend requests from complete strangers. If you do this, you risk hosting a unscrupulous cybercriminal in your list of “friends”, which will try to steal information about your profile.

In fact, an attacker could try to earn your trust by chatting with you. If he succeeded, he could then send you a link via a link behind which he has hidden a real phishing attempt: he could then use this particular hacking technique to steal your account.

In order not to run this kind of risks, do not accept friend requests from users you do not know or whose identity seems a little doubtful and, of course, do not click on suspicious links that are sent to you on Messenger, via e-mail or from notifications from Facebook pages. Understand?

Making a safer Facebook profile

Avoiding the mistakes I mentioned in the previous paragraphs may not be enough to keep you from spying on your Facebook profile. If you want to “sleep peacefully”, as they say, you have to do something more: make the most of the security settings made available by the social network, such as alerts for unauthorized access, two-factor authentication and some privacy settings.

Enable alerts for unauthorized access

Enabling alerts for unauthorized access is a great way to safeguard the security of your Facebook account. By activating this function, you will receive a notification every time you access Facebook from a new device or a new browser and this will help you to discover any unauthorized access in a timely manner.

If you want to activate alerts for unauthorized access, you must first log in to your Facebook account and then go to the social network settings: then click on the arrow icon located at the top (next to the symbol “?”) And select the item Settings from the menu that appears.

Then, on the page that opens, click on the Protection and account (left), click on the Edit button located next to Receive alerts on unrecognized access, put the check mark next to the options Receive notifications and Send notices access via SMS to the number [your mobile number] and click on the Save Changes button to save the changes.

From this precise moment, if someone unfortunately has to be able to access your account, you will be informed by a notification. You can then remedy the situation by closing all active sessions by clicking on the button Disconnected from all sessions (you can find it in the Where you logged in section), setting a new password (to prevent further unauthorized access) and signaling to Facebook ‘it happened.

Enable two-factor authentication

Activating two-factor authentication is another trick that can prevent attackers from accessing your Facebook profile. Enabling this security setting, in fact, you will need to use a secondary key (usually sent by SMS from the Facebook team) to log in from a new device or a new Web browser.

To enable two-factor authentication on Facebook, if you have not already done so, log in to your account, click on the arrow at the top right (next to the “?” Symbol) and click on the Settings item in the menu that appears.

Then, in the page that opens, click on the Protection and access (left), click on the Edit button located under the Configure two-factor authentication, click on the link Configure located near the word Authentication to two factors is deactivated and, in the box that appears in the middle of the screen, click on the Activate button.

If you have correctly performed the procedure I have just explained to you, a message confirming the activation of two-factor authentication should appear on the screen. From this very moment, the security level of your account will be greatly raised!

Use the privacy settings

Even if you can not access your account, the crackers could still be able to spy on you if you reveal on Facebook too much personal information or if you do not limit the display of certain contents using some settings for the protection of your privacy. The most famous social network in the world, in fact, offers the possibility to choose who can see what you post and other information concerning your profile.

To limit the display of certain content on Facebook, log into your account and then go to the social network settings by clicking on the arrow symbol (top right) and selecting the item Settings from the menu that appears. Next, click on the Privacy item and change the settings regarding the display of your posts and how other users can find your account by selecting the options Only me, Friends or Friends of friends.

If you want to deepen the aspects related to the privacy settings of your Facebook account, read the tutorials in which I explain how to privatize photos on Facebook and how to privatize friends on Facebook: there you will find many other useful information.

how to spy on a Facebook profile