Go to facebook right now.
What do you see in that address bar? If it looks like this picture, you’re practically begging someone to steal your info and use it in a variety of inappropriate ways.
Oh dear. Why? Because of one little detail up there – the first four letters, HTTP. They stand for hyper-Text Transfer Protocol. Don’t worry about what that means, just recognize that it’s pretty much the beginning of every web address you peruse throughout your daily browsing. You probably already knew that.
However, what you most likely didn’t know is how crazily insecure HTTP can be. There are tools you can download right now, for free, that can enable you to steal just about anyone’s facebook info. Fortunately, that’s not what this article is about. This is about preventing such thievery.
Are you ok with this dude all up in your data?
Conveniently, prevention of this is incredibly simple. Facebook has now enabled the use of HTTPS encryption to your facebook browsing. All that means is that when you’re browsing around, throwing out pictures, credit cards, and social security numbers, that data is encrypted as it flies around. Meaning really, really hard to understand for anyone but the intended recipient. Meaning you’re hugely reducing the chance of facebook data theft. So how do enable HTTPS browsing? Easy.
- Login to Facebook.
- Click on “Account” -> Account Settings
- Click “Account Security”, then check the box to enable HTTPS browsing.
Your facebook data is finally safe (at least in this one area). Joy.
Note: HTTPS browsing is slowly being released to FB members these next two weeks; if you don’t see the box there just wait a few days and check again.
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