Last weekend I was going through my emails, listening to the rain and wondering if I was feeling too lazy to vacuum the carpet, when I came across one with subject "Enable Facebook Protect".
"Your account requires advanced security from Facebook Protect", he said and told me that if I didn't activate Facebook Protect by a certain date, my account would be locked until until I activate it. I was asked to click the big blue button labeled "Enable Facebook Protect" to get started.
I was sure it was a phishing email. Until I found out not.
Facebook has been found to be pushing for more security for "certain people in the public eye", and therefore encouraging those on its list to adopt better security methods such as two-factor authentication. The company's interpretation of the "public eye" seems rather generous — for example, me and several colleagues on my Bord colleagues who received it, do not have a particularly high Facebook following. But that's not a bad thing, and if you fall for Facebook's interpretation of someone qualifying for this program and you receive an email from "[email protected]", you can be sure that it is legit.
If you get one but don't want to press any mysterious blue buttons, you can start the process this way:
After that, just follow the instructions. If you have a reasonably strong password and have already enabled 2FA, you won't need to do anything else; you will simply receive a message indicating that you are ready.
Incidentally, if you don't receive one of these emails and you don't see "Facebook Protect" in your Facebook Security Zone, you can still enable 2FA in the "Security" sections. and login" or "Password and security" - it's a good idea for everyone.
