First Published: 14th of October, 2021 by Patrick Carpen.
Last updated: October 15, 2021 at 3:43 am
Everyday, thousands of unsuspecting victims get their Facebook accounts hacked. Some hackers will run silently in the background – using your account together with you without your knowledge – while others may lock you out completely or even delete your account.
Facebook has gone to great lengths to make it difficult to hack Facebook accounts, but hackers keep coming up with newer, more innovative, under-the-hood techniques. Many hackers are software engineers and programmers who understand how membership sites are coded.
Nevertheless, most of the time when someone’s Facebook account has been hacked, it’s due to negligence on their part. Perhaps the password was too weak, their mobile device or computer was stolen, they shared the password – knowingly or unknowingly, with someone, etc.
In the past, hackers have used a variety of methods to trick users into giving up their passwords without actually knowing that that is what is happening.
It’s important to note here that not all Facebook accounts are created equal. Some people can lose a Facebook account and start a new one the next day with no worries, but others have Facebook accounts of great value – either sentimental or monetary, and losing it would be a serious problem.
For example, some people own Fan Pages with thousands of followers – and some hackers steal and sell those pages after hacking your Facebook account. Other people’s message boxes have critical and sensitive messages and information etc. Some hackers have been known to blackmail people after hacking their account – saying that they will post screenshots online unless they pay x amount of money. Furthermore, by hacking your account, criminals have a greater chance of stealing your identify – which can in turn be disastrous.
The latest “hack” the hackers came up with to steal your Facebook account is something called a “phishing site.” A phishing site is a fake website which looks almost identical to a real one. Tonight, 14th of October, 2021, I received a message from a friend of mine, Bob Delese, from the USA. The message appears to be forwarding me some interesting video, as you can see from the screenshot below.
As you can see from the screenshot above, Bob says, “look what I found….” and included a link. So, trusting Bob because we’ve been good friends for long, I click the link to see whatever it is, but this pops up.
Oops! Looks like I have to “verify my account information” to see the video! That’s the catch! Although that site looks EXACTLY like the Facebook website, its NOT! Just take a closer look at the URL towards the top of the site.
The URL of the site is “br3.li.” That’s not Facebook! If I only type my username and password into that site, the hackers will record it and use it to hack my Facebook account!
I called my friend, Bob, right away and told him that his account has been hacked, and that hackers are using his account to try to hack his friends’ accounts. Bob then sent a message to all his contacts warning them not to open any links that came from him as he set about securing his account.
Being a tech person, I can recognize these scams, but a lot of people might not. Share this article to help someone.