How to recover a hacked Facebook account

For a lot of people, Facebook is pretty much the entirety of their online presence. With pictures of your kids and pets, plenty of friends and personal data, you don’t really want someone else accessing your account. The end isn’t nigh if your Facebook account has been hacked, though, as there is a pretty decent account recovery procedure. You should get your precious Facebook account back in no time.

Recovering your hacked Facebook account

Getting your Facebook account back in your control is actually surprisingly simple and is a relatively straightforward process. First, you need to report that your account was hacked by going to facebook.com/hacked. From here, Facebook will help guide you in the process of recovering your account; just click the ‘My account is compromised’ button at the bottom.

You’ll then be asked to type in either your email address, phone number, username or full name associated with your Facebook profile. Facebook will now search for any relevant users, if you can’t see your name on the list, try putting something else in the search bar, such as your name or phone number. 

Click through to your profile and type in the last password you remember associated with your account. Obviously, if your current password works and hasn’t been changed, log into Facebook normally and change your password as soon as possible if you see something suspicious. If your password has been changed, Facebook will let you use the old password to help you get access again.

You’ll then get a message pop-up saying you entered an old password and you can now click ‘Reset my Password’. Now, you’ll be asked to be sent an email by Facebook with a link to reset your password. Obviously, if your email associated with your account has been changed, you don’t want to send the email to the hackers’ address, so click ‘No longer have access to these?’. Likewise, if your email account has been hacked, you’ll want to choose that option and you might want to read my guide to recovering a hacked Gmail address.

You can now write down the new email address you want the link to be sent to, which will also make that email address your primary email to log into your account. Click ‘Continue’ and wait for your email and, if you can’t see it, check your spam folder or send it to another email address. Follow the details in your email to reset your password and you should now finally have control of your Facebook account.

Facebook security tips

There are plenty of ways you can prevent someone accessing your account again, so you’re best to follow these steps if you don’t really want this to happen once more. First up, make sure your password for your Facebook profile is different to any other online account you own. This helps prevent anyone guessing your password if another account is compromised. You also ought to make your email accounts more secure so that if you ever lose access, you can regain control quickly. Check out our guide on how to secure your Gmail account.

There’s also Facebook’s version of two-step verification, which gives you an extra layer of security for your account. You’ll need to access your “Security Settings” when logged into your account, click on “Login Approvals” and save changes. From now on, whenever you sign into a new device, Facebook will send you a text message with a code to successfully log in.

If you’re in the US, you can also use a one-time password to log into your account, which is very useful if you are using a public computer. If your mobile number is linked to your account, send a text message to 32665 with the message otp, to receive your temporary password.