Facebook, in order to enhance the security on the accounts of its users, is requesting its users worldwide to provide their mobile phone numbers. As you know Facebook is a giant social networking site having over 900 million active users and the site is asking all its users to provide their mobile phone numbers. This particular action is being carried out by Facebook because a lot of users are facing troubles related to password hacks. These password hacks are also happening with many other social networking sites such as LinkedIn and eHarmony.
A link suggesting the users to go through some important security tips is being displayed at the top of the desktop news feed of many a Millions users. When a user clicks the displayed link, he or she gets navigated to a security page of the site and here the user is asked to select a unique password. A tutorial on the basis of finding out an online scam is also provided. Then, the user is asked to grant his or her mobile phone number. Facebook said that this idea in fact will do wonders as once a user’s phone number has been confirmed; the site is enabled to erase the password automatically when the account is being hacked. After this, Facebook will be forwarding a text message to the user informing about the change in password.
The site also says that texting would be a better option as an email sent is ignored by many users considering it as a junk email and are deleted by many too. According to Facebook, a millions of users in the US have witnessed the security message on their desktop and this will also be witnessed by all the users having an account in Facebook in a few days. The giant site also reported saying this update of security has no link with the LinkedIn hack which was happened recently. LinkedIn is a social network specifically designed for professionals and about 6.5 million of its total 161 million users’ passwords were displayed on the web after the hack.
The online published list only featured passwords and not a single login but most probably a hacker is more likely to access that too. eHarmony, a well know online dating website based in California had earlier reported saying the passwords of some of its users were hacked and were also displayed online. This company consisted about more than 20 million active and registered users and their passwords were negotiated though the exact number of troubled users was untold. According to tech experts, about 1.5 million users were troubled with hacks.