Meta changed the way two-factor authentication works for Facebook and Instagram last year. You may have received notifications about this, but it’s easy to miss in the platform’s sea of red flags. Okay, so what’s the difference? “Any device you’ve regularly used Facebook on in the past two years will automatically be trusted,” Meta’s updated settings page says. Your smartphone and laptop may not need 2FA codes to log in, unless you go into settings and opt out.
Over time, Meta has made many adjustments to how it implements 2FA. In 2018, it started allowing 2FA codes generated by a third-party application. A few years later, the company started requires more vulnerable accounts to enable 2FA protection. The company faces a difficult balance between making it easy for you to log into your account and protects users from losing control their online identity.
Enabling 2FA is a fundamental way to improve the security of any online profile, as it makes it more difficult for hackers to try to break into your accounts. “Basically, the role of two factors is the assumption that at some point your password will be known by someone else,” said Casey Ellis, founder and chief strategy officer at. crowd, a crowdsourced security company that previously partnered with Facebook. “You have no control over when or how that happens.” For users, this fallback measure is often as easy as copying and pasting a quick code from within a smartphone app, e.g. Google Authenticator.
Anyone with a social media account on Facebook or Instagram needs to enable it two-factor authentication in their privacy settings. There’s no shame if you haven’t done so yet, but do so now by logging into your account. Account centerclick Passwords and securityLater Two-factor authentication.
Now that you’ve got it all set up, here’s what’s changed with Meta’s 2FA process: It’s no longer enabled anywhere you’ve typically used Facebook or Instagram in the past two years, from your phone previous generation smart phones to old laptops.
What is the reason for this adjustment? “As part of our ongoing work to balance accessibility and account security, we let people know that we will consider devices they often use to log into Facebook is trustworthy.”
Facebook via Reece Rogers
