In an unsurprising turn of events, Facebook has been hit with yet another massive data breach. As we reported, a large data set of 533 million Facebook users, almost 20% of the userbase, has been leaked on a popular hacker forum. The data includes phone numbers, email addresses, names, gender, date of birth, location, relationship status, and employer information, among other things. It has come to light that hackers exploited a Facebook vulnerability to obtain this personal data. So if you want to check if your Facebook account was breached in the recent data leak, follow our guide below. We have also put together a guide to secure your Facebook account in case your data was leaked online.
- Check If Your Account was Exposed in Facebook Data Leak
- Secure Your Account After Facebook Data Breach
- How to Change or Reset Facebook Password
- Enable Two-Factor Authentication on Facebook
- Set up Online Data Breach Alerts
- Double Check for Password Leaks
- Remove Third-Party Access from Facebook
- Use Password Manager to Create Strong Passwords
Check If Your Account was Exposed in Facebook Data Leak (April 2021)
While this guide is in particular about Facebook, you can use the same steps for any of your online accounts to check for data breaches in the future and safeguard your account. I would strongly recommend you go through the next section to secure your account.
- How to Change or Reset Facebook Password
- First up, you must change the password of your Facebook account right away. Log in to Facebook, preferably from a device that you have been using to browse the website. After that, click on this link to directly open the Security Settings on Facebook.
How to Change or Reset Facebook Password
- Enable Two-Factor Authentication on Facebook
Once you have changed the password, you must enable two-factor authentication (2FA) to protect your Facebook account. We have already written a detailed guide on how to enable 2FA on Facebook, go through that, and you will have it set up in a jiffy.
Enable Two-Factor Authentication on Facebook
Set up Online Data Breach Alerts
You are now one step closer to protecting your Facebook account. You can now set up a notification service for future breaches through haveibeenpawnd. If your email is found in any future online leaks, not just Facebook, the website will alert you via email. You can then rush to change your password immediately and set up 2FA. To proceed, open haveibeenpawned.com and click on “Notify Me” in the top navigation bar.
Double Check for Password Leaks
Apart from that, I will recommend you to check if your password has been leaked anywhere on the internet. You can do so by opening the ‘Passwords’ section on haveibeenpwned.com. Here, enter the password that you use for online accounts. If your password was ever part of a data leak, then change it immediately and quit using that password on any other website in the future.
Remove Third-Party Access from Facebook
Also, as a safe practice, remove third-party access to your Facebook account, and from now onwards, don’t grant permission to any and every third-party app to your account. Over the years, we have seen third-party apps become a source of data leaks from Facebook.
- Use Password Manager to Create Strong Passwords
Finally, you should use password managers for all your online accounts. Password managers can help create strong, unbreakable passwords. They are protected with AES 256-bit encryption. They can’t be brute-forced through any attack.
