At present 600,000+ Facebook accounts get hacked daily (Sophos 2014). This includes all your personal information, pictures and just about anything you put online. This is not only personally embarrassing, makes your business look unprofessional but is a major security risk to your personal details.
There are different approaches to look out for on different social media channels, use these tips and pass on to friends and family to spot the signs.
Twitter
If you or someone you follow gets mentioned in a tweet, that is along the lines ‘Thank you, that was amazing.’ or something similar using the same tone i.e. awesome or hilarious followed by a link, and if you click on the link it will send you to a twitter log in page. Do not log in! You should never need to re log in once active on a twitter page. Otherwise it will send spam out to all your followers and so the cycle begins.
Facebook
Facebook hackers have a similar approach. This time its pictures ‘look at what this girl did at school…you will not believe it!’ or something similar with a provocative title (trap). It will then take you to Facebook login page, where you will be asked to sign in. You should not need to sign in again if you are already active on Facebook. If you do log in, it will approach all your friends and post some embarrassing posts on your wall, saying you have liked them.
Conclusion
Hackers will never give up trying and will be trying different approaches soon, so how can we avoid being hacked?
Use your common sense – Do not click on anything that looks suspicious and never put your personal details in unless you are 100% sure it is safe.
Think before you click!
Ensure that you have a suitable password. Did you know?
It takes only 10 minutes to crack a lowercase password that is 6 characters long. Add two extra letters and a few uppercase letters and that number jumps to three years. Add just one more character and some numbers and symbols and it will take 44,530 years to crack.
What should you do if your account has been hacked?
Notify all your contact that potentially could be affected telling them what look out for and not to open any attachments from yourself.
Ensure that all security software on your computer/device is up-to-date.
Change your password to one with at least 8 characters, with symbols and numbers.