Security: Facebook requests mobile numbers

Facebook is educating their users about security by requesting their mobile phone number as protection.

While the last few days have seen a series of password leaks, Facebook has addressed their 900 million users with a particular message: "Keep control of your account by following these simple security suggestions".

Currently being deployed, this message will appear at the top of the news stream with a link that points to Facebook’s security recommendations. This is before all else an effort to educate users about computer security.

Among these recommendations is one that will certainly have privacy experts up in arms – Facebook asking for users to enter their mobile phone number.

We will have to see whether a lot of users are open to this request. This is an additional security measure which isn’t new, with Google and Microsoft already using it (Windows Live, for example).

If an account is compromised, a mobile phone confirmation allows Facebook to immediately reinitialise the password and send a new one via SMS. Facebook isn’t calling only on email to notify users about a changed password, as users frequently ignore these believing they are spam.
 
According to TechCrunch, it was decided to send all users this message following LinkedIn’s problems this week.