Why fraudsters want to hack your Facebook and 7 ways to stop them


While millions of us routinely use Facebook on a daily basis, criminals are constantly on the look out to hack into them and the treasure trove of personal data lurking inside. 

Many of us will recognise the seemingly odd post from a friend on Facebook, swiftly followed by a ‘Ignore my posts, I’ve been hacked message’.

But why do the fraudsters do it? They can get access to people’s personal data through Facebook, yet much of that has already been made public to an extent, so what is the attraction of the wave of Facebook hacking, how is it done, and can you protect yourself?

Facebook have disabled more than 1.3billion fake accounts between January and March this year, but people are still getting hacked at times because they reuse easy to guess passwords

Facebook have disabled more than 1.3billion fake accounts between January and March this year, but people are still getting hacked at times because they reuse easy to guess passwords

Last month cybersecurity experts, Nordlocker, found a huge cache of stolen data containing 26million logins for popular websites such as Amazon, LinkedIn and Facebook.

They said the data had been stolen between 2018 and 2020 using custom Trojan-type malware which infiltrated over three million Windows-based computers and stole 1.2TB (terabytes) of personal information.

The battle to eliminate fake and hacked Facebook accounts rages on. 

Paul Vlissidis author of How to Survive the Internet and lead cyber-security advisor to Channel 4 show, Hunted, says: ‘I think there is a constant background of people getting their account compromised.

‘When the password information rocks up on the dark web, the hackers will use those passwords on various platforms of which Facebook is one. 

‘Hackers will sift through all of these accounts and see which ones are still current. They will put a list together and run a scam campaign against those groups.’

It’s not only breaches to your own Facebook account that you have to worry about. 

Security threats can also come from other account users. Between January and March this year, Facebook disabled more than 1.3billion fake accounts – 99.8 per cent of the time before they were reported.

While criminals use fake accounts to conduct phishing scams they increasingly prefer to hack into legitimate accounts.

Paul Vlissidis a cyber-security advisor to the Channel 4 show, Hunted, says there is a constant background of people getting their Facebook account compromised.

Paul Vlissidis a cyber-security advisor to the Channel 4 show, Hunted, says there is a…

Source…