Russian Hacker Selling 1.5 Million Facebook Accounts

There is late breaking news that a Russian hacker claims to have 1.5 million Facebook accounts up for sale, which could potentially compromise your account.

According to Mashable, Verisign iDefense has uncovered a “cyber-crook on an electronic fraud forum selling 1.5 million Facebook accounts at a price of $25 per 1,000 accounts.” If the hacker’s claims are true, the 1.5 million accounts represent approximately 1 in every 300 Facebook users.

It is not yet known who the Facebook account holders are, but just to be safe, ReputationDefender recommends that you change your Facebook password immediately.

Here’s how:

1. Login to your Facebook account.
2. Click the Account tab in the upper right hand corner of your profile and select Account Settings.
3. Select the Change option next to Password and you will be prompted to input your old password and select a new one.

Facebook Privacy Settings Have Changed

In the past couple weeks  Facebook has made a few changes that may have altered your Privacy settings and those of 350 million other users.

Depending on whether your Facebook profile is personal or used largely for business, you need to look at your privacy settings and determine just what you want other people and the search engines to see.

I recommend you take the following steps to update your profile and account privacy to the level that you want:

1. Click on “Settings” in the upper left-hand corner of your screen, near the Search box.
2. Click on “Privacy Settings” from the drop-down menu.
3. Click on “Profile Information” and set each item listed to your preferred privacy level.
4. Click “Back to Privacy” above the list of items.
5. Click on “Contact Information” and repeat choosing your level of privacy for all the items listed, as you see fit.
6. Click “Back to Privacy” above the list of items. And now Click on “Search” to edit who can search you, as well as if you want your profile at all to be indexed by search engines.

Read Facebook’s Privacy Policy here.