How can you reduce the spoofing of Facebook accounts?  Asking for a friend...(actually, for all of them!)

"If you get a friend request or Facebook message from me, ignore it - I've been hacked."  Technically, you've been "spoofed," not hacked.  The spoofer merely created an account pretending to be yours for any number of nefarious reasons.  And it turns out that a simple privacy setting may have prevented that, or at least limited the scope of the spoof.

Here's how to reduce spoofing by limiting access to your Facebook friends list.

Default Settings are Unsafe

A simple Privacy Checkup shows unsafe default settings for sharing your friends list, which spoofers use to contact your friends as you.  To see this, lick the ? icon on the upper right ride, then choose "Privacy Checkup") 

It's a good idea to reviewing all of these settings at least once a year, but choose "Who can see what you share" (even though you didn't explicitly share your friends list, Facebook does this by default). 

Your friends list is considered "Profile Information" so click Continue to see your profile.  Scroll down to see the "Friends and Following" section.  Unless you've changed it, your friends list and the people, Pages and lists you follow are set to "Public," allowing anyone, including spoofers, to get a list of your friends to contact with fake account friend requests and Facebook Messenger messages.

Although this information may have been saved previously, it will make future spoofers work harder to find this information.