If someone is victimized, it could damage their reputation and cost thousands of dollars in lost revenue. That’s exactly what happened to Dale Berry, the owner of an elementary school English academy in Japan who had his Facebook account compromised by scammers. Hackers used his account to display fraudulent ads, destroying his company and destroying his reputation.
Hackers initially target those who have weak passwords, for example “qwerty” or “password.” They then impersonate a friend to request a password reset code. the password. The hackers then use the security feature that lets users add trusted contacts to their account in the event they forget their password. They can request these trusted friends to give them the one-time code to gain access to the account.
Buying stolen login information is another way hackers gain access. Recently an inventory of 26 million Amazon, LinkedIn, and Facebook passwords were found available on the dark internet. Many of these were leaked via custom Trojan malware that hacked into millions of Windows-based PCs between the years of 2018 to 2020.
Users can be protected from these attacks by checking that the address bar of their browser is Facebook and not a different website. Users should create a password comprised of letters, numbers and spaces, and never reuse it for any other email or social media accounts. They should also monitor their notifications for activity regularly. Twitter, for example, will notify users when there’s a suspicious login from a new device or location.