Facebook account stolen or compromised, how to fix

If you notice any unusual activity on your own account Facebook, it may have been stolen O hacked, i.e. hacked by a hacker or simply hit by a virus application that uses the account to do what it wants with it.
Unusual activity means sending messages that you don’t really remember sending, sending advertisements, posting never-written updates, and so on. In some cases it may be that you are no longer even able to access your Facebook account that has been compromised or stolen by someone.
The problem with Facebook is that it is often used with little care compared to what you would do with the bank account for example, leaving passwords simple to discover, never changed in many years and then with the propensity to click on anything that seems nice, even if you often end up giving personal data to strangers.

READ ALSO: How to hack a Facebook account

Given the amount of data we add to Facebook, it’s more important than ever to make sure you keep your account secure. However, even the most security conscious users can have their account compromised. A secure password is not enough; you just need to lose your phone or accidentally leave it connected to a public computer. Facebook can also be hacked by close people, who perhaps in a clever way or with deception try to know what we write and what messages we send to other people.
Fortunately, Facebook offers some protections to keep your account safe from hackers, e recover the use of the profile if it is discovered that it has been compromised or stolen.

Check for unrecognized Facebook logins

Facebook keeps track of all the devices used to access the account, and if accessed from a new browser or computer or from an unusual location, Facebook may send a notification to warn the user of the possible stolen account.
To activate this function, log in to Facebook, click on the small arrow in the upper right corner of the screen and open the Settings from the menu. Then, on the left side of the screen, click on Security and access.
If you scroll down, you can find options for receive alerts on unrecognized logins, to be activated for both Facebook and Messenger. You can request a smartphone notification, an email notification, or both. When ready, press on Save Changes .
Note that this function does not block the login attempt, but informs you that the login is successful).

Check the connections made

Remaining in the security settings as in the previous point, you can see all active and recent Facebook sessions at the top of the page, where it is written Where are you logged in.
Currently active sessions will have an indicator written in green next to the name of the browser used. For each session, you can see the device type, location and date. If you notice an unrecognized connection to the account here, you can press on the three vertical dots next to the session name and click on Is not you. Facebook will walk you through various options to fix the problem and secure the account.
However, note that the list is based on IP addresses and may not be accurate (e.g. reporting connections from other countries on our part), so many are not entirely accurate.
To close all active sessions, you can press the key Log out of all sessions at the bottom of the list. After doing this it’s worth changing your Facebook password immediately and enabling Facebook two-factor authentication.

Signs that the Facebook account has been compromised

Symptoms that the account may have been hacked, hacked or stolen are as follows:

• Personal data (name, date of birth, place, employer, etc.) have been changed.
• We have friends with people we don’t recognize
• Non-ours messages have been sent from our Messenger account
• Unusual and never-before-seen posts appear in the news stream.
• In the diary of our friends there are our posts that we have never written

You can also check if the email and password used for the login have been stolen and have been made public. To do this there are sites like have i been pwned where you just need to enter the email address or username used to log in to Facebook to see if it has been made public and if it is associated with the password currently used. It’s an easy way to check a list of hacked Facebook accounts.

How to report to Facebook that the account has been stolen or hacked

If you cannot log in to the account (and even if you can still log in but there are some weird things) you can ask Facebook to fix the problem from the page www.facebook.com/hacked.
This step opens a wizard asking you to indicate the problem if:

• I saw a post, message, or event on my account that I didn’t create.
• Someone else entered my account without my permission.
• I found an account that uses my name or photos.
• People can see things on my account that I thought were private.
• Other problem

If you can no longer log in, Facebook asks you to enter the username or e-mail address you used to log into Facebook or even enter your name and one of the names of your Facebook friends. Facebook tries among all registered accounts to recognize the right one and asks you to enter the old password. Even if the hacker changed the password, Facebook will be able to recognize the old password to regain access. You will eventually be asked to create a new password, which is different from the previous one, at least eight characters long and which has a special character or number.
After creating the new password, Facebook will advise the user to change the email password, especially if this were the same as the old Facebook password. In fact, it may be that the hacker has compromised the account and managed to enter because he is able to read the emails from the hacked user’s private mailbox.
The Facebook help page provides more details for the recovery procedure if you are a victim of a hacker.
Also very useful is the setting of trusted contacts to help us recover the lost account.

Other checks to do to prevent account problems

1) First of all check that the computer used is protected from viruses and foreign access.
It may be that the Facebook account has been hacked because it was accessed from a friend’s computer or from a public PC without going out or because someone used our computer. It may also be that there is malware on the PC that is responsible for the problem.
Do an anti-malware check using programs such as malwarebytes to clean any viruses.

2) Check applications used that have Facebook permissions.
One of the most common methods of hacking Facebook is by using an application or game authorized to use the Facebook account. Go to your Account Settings, in the Apps section, and immediately delete all the apps you are not using.

READ ALSO: Recover your Facebook login and password if you no longer log in