If someone is hacked, it can damage their reputation and cost thousands of dollars in ad revenue. That’s what happened to Dale Berry, the owner of a preschool English academy in Japan who got his Facebook account hacked by scammers. Hackers ran fake ads on the account, which stripped his business of money and left him with a damaged reputation.
The hackers first target those who have weak passwords, for example « qwerty » or « password. » They then impersonate a friend to request a code to reset the password. The hackers then exploit a security feature which allows people to add trusted contacts to their account in the event that they forget their password. They can ask their trusted friends to give them the unique code that allows them to gain access to the account.
Another method hackers can gain access to accounts is by buying stolen login details. A cache of 26 million Amazon, LinkedIn and Facebook passwords was recently discovered available for sale on the dark web. A large portion of these passwords were stolen by a custom Trojan malware that infected millions of Windows-based computer between the years 2018 and 2020.
Users can avoid these attacks if they always check that the address bar on their browser is Facebook and not a different site. It is also recommended to use the password that combines numbers spaces, letters and spaces and never duplicate the same password across other social media or email accounts. Additionally, they should check their activity notifications on a regular basis. Twitter, for example, will notify users when there’s a suspicious login from the new device or from a different location.
