If someone has unauthorized access to your Facebook account, that’s bad news. If you don’t react quickly, it probably won’t end well. But how do you know if someone else is accessing your account?

Here’s how to tell if someone else has access to your Facebook account and what to do about it.

Is Someone Accessing Your Facebook Account?

If someone has access to your account without your knowledge, the situation can quickly turn dire. Luckily, Facebook has made it easy to uncover the truth. In fact, the feature has been around for a long time, but Facebook doesn’t do a good job of telling you about it.

To get started, log in to your account and click on your profile icon in the top-right corner of the screen. You will see a menu like below. You have to select Settings & Privacy > Settings.

Once the Settings page loads, locate Security and Login on the panel on the left side of the screen.

The website will take you to the security page. On this page, you’ll find lots of features to prevent someone from gaining access to your account again. For now, we are only interested in the section where you are logged in.

You will see a list of all the devices and locations that are currently authorized to access your account. Be sure to click See More to see the full list.

It’s worth noting that the list combines Facebook logins with Messenger logins. So if you think only one of the two services has been compromised, it’s easy to investigate.

How to remove device access on facebook

If you see something that looks suspicious, you can use this list to revoke its access. Bear in mind that some IP address glitches can sometimes see one of your legitimate devices popping up in an unfamiliar location. Using a VPN that is set up on a server in a different location will also cause this. It is safe to ignore these cases.

If you are Not You? Facebook will block the device in question and ask you to take some steps (more on those shortly) to secure your account. If you click Log Out, access will be revoked, but an unauthorized person could potentially log in again if they knew your password.

If you want to start fresh, scroll to the bottom of the list of your devices and click Log out of all sessions.

Change your facebook password

Once you’ve revoked unauthorized person’s access, you need to take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Of course, the first step is to change your Facebook password. You can do this by going to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Security & Login > Login > Change Password. You will need to enter your old password to complete the process.

But changing your password is only half the story. You should also consider setting up two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication can use either a text message, a Universal Second Factor (U2F) security key, the official Facebook code generator (in the smartphone app), or a third party code generator. Consider the pros and cons of using two-factor authentication if you’re unfamiliar with it. You’ll need to scan a QR code to set up a third-party code generator.

You should also set up alerts for unrecognized logins. By enabling the feature, Facebook will notify you if it sees a login from a suspicious source. This will allow you to react more quickly in the event of a breach.

To set up the feature, go to Settings & privacy > Settings > Security & login > Set up additional security > Receive alerts about unrecognized logins > Edit. Mark the checkbox next to Receive notifications at [address] (or both) or Receive email alerts, depending on your preferences. Click Save Changes when you’re ready.

And add 2FA and login alerts for an extra layer of security.

If you have confirmed that your account has been hacked, there are a few things to do immediately if your Facebook account is hacked. If the hacker has already changed your credentials, there are ways to recover your Facebook account when you can’t log in.

Unauthorized access to your account could also put your other social media profiles at risk, or allow hackers to send malware to your friends. So make sure to solve it as soon as possible.

Beware of the web

Facebook is far from being the only service that has the potential to ruin your life if someone accesses it unauthorized. To make sure you stay safe on the web, make sure you follow basic security principles.

For example, don’t use the same password on two different sites, use 2FA where available, and don’t access highly sensitive data on public computers or public Wi-Fi networks. Always use a VPN, especially when using public Wi-Fi networks.