Facebook shows your profile if you use your phone as a double factor of security

Surprise! A measure that should serve to increase the security of your account on the social network Facebook is actually being used to reach you. And even worse, now it is known that they can also search for your profile through your phone number even if you have tried to hide this information. But that's not all, the really serious thing is that you can no longer go back and delete all this information This is Facebook with its double authentication factor.

The double factor authentication is an increasingly widespread security method between social networks and different Internet services. It consists of sending us an exclusive code to the mobile or another application when we want to log in. In this way, only we receive that code, in addition to entering the password, so it will be twice as difficult for hackers and cybercriminals to access our profiles and services. This method is usually associated with the phone number to receive the code via SMS. So far so good, but it has already been shown that companies like Facebook take advantage of this resource for other purposes.

https://twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/1101402001907372032

Specifically, Facebook not only allows you to double the security of your account with this system, but also take advantage of and collect your phone number to send youand different ads.Something that confirmed last year. Now several users have realized that they can also search their Facebook profiles through this phone number, even when the information is hidden in said profile.

Apparently, the user Jeremy Burge has raised the hare through various messages on Twitter reporting on his discovery. It doesn't matter if you have a Facebook user account or not, if you enter a phone number of someone you know, you can reach their Facebook profile. Something that not only happens with the social network of the F, but is information also shared with the Instagram social network and with the WhatsApp application, all of them under the Same Facebook umbrella. And as we said, the worst thing is that there is no way to avoid it if Facebook has already saved your phone number.

Yep. I can no longer keep keep private the phone number that I PROVIDED ONLY FOR SECURITY to Facebook.ZERO notification of this major, risky change. For years I urged dissidents at risk to use 2FA on Facebook. They were afraid of this. @Facebook doesn't care about their safety. pic.twitter.com/lW8wjBJlfz

- zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) March 3, 2019

For security experts like Zeynep Tufekci, phone numbers are sensitive information that is often used to break the security of accounts on social networks and services. Stop him “using security to further weaken privacy is a lousy move”, and phone numbers are key in this situation. That is why it is advisable to take advantage of other applications and services such as Google Authenticator, which creates verification codes without relating this step of double authentication to your phone number. A safer and less usable way for companies like Facebook.

For Facebook these measures are not new.According to different media such as TechCrunch, the social network does not seem willing for this activity to change. In addition, Facebook emphasizes the idea that this function helps users find contacts they already know but are not yet friends with on the social network.

How to secure your Facebook account

If you are concerned about your information and visibility on Facebook, the first thing to do would be not to have an account on the social network. But if you don't want to do without it, you can change your privacy settings to minimize the harm of these Facebook practices. To do this, go to the section "How can people find you and get in touch with you", and select the option Friends in "Who can look you up with the phone number What have you provided? In this way, only other contacts who are already friends on Facebook will be able to find your profile when they check your phone in the social network search engine. Without other users or even non-Facebook users being able to reach you doing the same.