Facebook Uses Scare Tactics to Get You to Improve 'Account Protection'

You may have already seen it: a warning in the upper right hand corner of the Facebook home page declaring that your account protection is low -- or, even worse, very low! The warnings are a little overzealous, and don't come with much of an explanation. It's no wonder, then, that some folks have thought that it was part of some scam or a piece of Facebook scareware. But it's actually Facebook's way of getting you to beef up your account security... sort of. Clicking to increase your protection asks you to complete a couple of simple tasks that don't necessarily make your account more secure, but will make it easier to regain access to your account should it be compromised. You'll be asked to give an alternate e-mail address (should your primary e-mail account be hacked), to answer a "secret question," and to confirm your mobile phone number -- presumably for use with Facebook's temporary password feature.

There's nothing wrong with this, but Facebook never really makes clear why it needs this information from you. You'll have to be comfortable adding your cell phone number and another e-mail address to the social network's vast user database. Graham Cluley at the Sophos blog Naked Security points out that, if Facebook were really concerned with improving your security, the site would likely instruct you to: create hard-to-crack passwords, not answer secret questions honestly, and use different passwords for your Facebook and e-mail account (and different passwords on your primary and alternate e-mail accounts). There's nothing wrong with offering options for recovering your account in case it gets hacked, but there is certainly a more honest way to approach the topic that doesn't involve scare tactics.

Facebook Uses Scare Tactics to Get You to Improve 'Account Protection' originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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