Last Updated on 04/12/2021 by Sanskriti
Facebook is increasing its security programme by adding more layers to it. Recently Facebook has made two-factor authentication mandatory for all users in order to safeguard their accounts on Facebook. For accounts that are at a high risk of being hacked, the social media business is considering making two-factor authentication obligatory. Journalists, government officials, and Human rights activists are among those on the list who are in high danger. Adding a second factor of authentication to your account offers an extra degree of protection.
The new mechanism will be rolled out as part of Facebook’s increased security initiative, Facebook Protect. The initiative was created to safeguard the accounts of those who are at a greater risk of their credentials being stolen by cyber thieves. The social networking app is also experimenting with making the function available to all users. That, however, is not going to happen anytime soon.
Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Security Policy at Facebook told TechCrunch about the feature saying, “2FA is such a core component of any user’s online defense, so we want to make this as easy as possible. To help drive wider enrollment of 2FA, we need to go beyond raising awareness or encouraging enrollment. This is a community of people that sit at very critical points in public debate and are highly targeted, so for their own protection, they probably should be enabling 2FA.“
To continue using the social networking app, accounts in the high-risk category will need to enable 2FA. If a user who has been identified by Facebook as having a high-risk account fails to enable two-factor authentication before the expiration date, he will lose access to his account. While Facebook will not permanently restrict users’ accounts, they will be required to use two-factor authentication in order to restore access to their accounts.
Here are the steps to enable two-factor authentication
—Go to Facebook and log in
— Go to the security and login settings and select Edit from the drop-down menu — Choose the security option you wish to use and follow the instructions on the screen.
— When you’ve finished setting up two-factor authentication on Facebook, tap Finish.
Facebook said that 9,50,000 of the 1.5 million accounts registered in the Facebook Protect programme have already enabled two-factor authentication. By the end of the year, Facebook plans to expand two-factor authentication to more than 50 countries, including India, the United States, and Portugal.
