It may seem like a great idea to become Facebook friends with people overseas that you\u2019ve never met \u2013 and never will meet \u2013 but Facebook has a suggestion: don\u2019t do it. Yes, the social media giant \u2013 that wants the world to connect on its platform \u2013 strongly warns its members to be virtual friends only with people that are already their actual friends or acquaintances.<\/p>\n
Get the Facebook guide \u2013 \u2018Own Your Space\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2011, after several controversies that grew out of ill-advised data sharing among users, Facebook released a guide to Facebook security<\/a> \u2013 entitled \u2018Own Your Space\u2019. \u00a0It covers an array of general best practices for online behaviour, including password management and how to recognise phishing scams<\/a> (email or message-based scams that pretend to have legitimate purposes).<\/p>\n Beware of the criminals<\/strong><\/p>\n Facebook is a fertile hunting ground for hackers, scammers and criminals that see opportunities in the global reach and massive user base of the social network. Phishing, password-reset ploys and other scams have been prevalent on Facebook for several years. However, users can help protect themselves from these attacks by applying simple reasoning to their online interactions.<\/p>\n Facebook security \u2013 and online security in general \u2013 is constantly evolving, so it\u2019s wise to keep up-to-date on security best practice.\u00a0 Always be aware that some of what you share about yourself could be accessed by almost anyone with an Internet connection. As a first step, it\u2019s worth following Facebook\u2019s advice\u2026 don\u2019t become Facebook friends with strangers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It may seem like a great idea to become Facebook friends with people overseas that you\u2019ve never met \u2013 and never will meet \u2013 but Facebook has a suggestion: don\u2019t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[20,235,97,131],"class_list":{"0":"post-904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tips","8":"tag-facebook","9":"tag-friends","10":"tag-security-2","11":"tag-tips"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"x-default","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/dont-be-facebook-friends-with-strangers\/904\/"},{"hreflang":"en-in","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/dont-be-facebook-friends-with-strangers\/904\/"},{"hreflang":"en-ae","url":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/dont-be-facebook-friends-with-strangers\/904\/"},{"hreflang":"en-us","url":"https:\/\/usa.kaspersky.com\/blog\/dont-be-facebook-friends-with-strangers\/904\/"},{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/dont-be-facebook-friends-with-strangers\/904\/"},{"hreflang":"en-au","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/dont-be-facebook-friends-with-strangers\/904\/"},{"hreflang":"en-za","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.za\/blog\/dont-be-facebook-friends-with-strangers\/904\/"}],"acf":[],"banners":"","maintag":{"url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/tag\/facebook\/","name":"Facebook"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31218,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions\/31218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}