Facebook Account Hacked

[SandgroperWA]

Hi

Perhaps someone out there has some ideas.

My teenage sons facebook account was hacked and some rather unsavoury things where posted in his profile.

I have contacted Facebook, but as yet no informations is forthcoming .

Perhaps some computer whizz can advise if it is actually possible for me to find who would have done this?

How do I go about making sure that my 14 years is procected against this sort of stuff.

Any advise would be appreciated.

Thanks

SG

[polly]

Change the password

Make the profile 'Friends only'

Make sure he personally / IRL (in real life) knows each of the friends and that they aren't 'friends of friends'

Make sure he doesn't log in to his profile anywhere but on the home pc. School and internet cafe pcs tend to have key loggers on that capture password information. Also that he doesn't save the password if he does give into temptation and logs in at school. You will have to educate him as well that his password is completely private and he cannot UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES tell his friends / buddies / best mates. Also check which groups he belongs to on facebook and that his settings do not allow users in the same group to view his profile

Hope you get this sorted.

[KathyW]

Well I was shocked to read this because a good friend of my daughter's has just gone through the same thing.

She was badly spoken about on her Facebook, she is somebody who is overweight, and you can imagine what was said about her and her weight, this has upset this girl so much that she does not even want to go back to school next month incase it is somebody at her school.

My daughter just deleted her profile and and created a new profile.

Oh by the way, it was not Facebook it was "My Space" where this happened.

Disgusting really................

[Mara]

Well here I am, not a young girl, by any stretch of the imagination! I joined facebook about 18 months ago, around the time that Hendie suggested it, and within six weeks I had some very unsavoury charecters and messages on my account, quite possibly it had been hacked into and believe me, I had not given my password to anyone, had not saved it, and never used a computer other than my home one to access facebook! I got out of there so fast and insisted that Facebook completely remove me from their system, this took about 20 emails and I still have no idea whether or not they actually did....I will never join again!

[Heymanse]

We were just talking to my 16 year old daughter about the "dangers" lurking on the internet and especially places like Facebook. We've heard of identity theft occurring with people on Facebook as well and even though you do not state what you're address is, there's apparently a way the IT guru's can track you down by simply reading your messages sent to family and friends. I obviously don't know how true this is and if it can actually be done, as I'm not an IT boffin. But I am afraid of my daughter's ignorance and naitivity. She thinks my husband and I are just overprotective parents and we don't know a thing. Well, I'll be sure to show her this threat - I'm hoping she opens up her eyes and become a bit more careful. I know for certain that she did not activate the "friends only" profile because she spoke about a guy that she didn't know inviting her onto his facebook. She went to look on his profile to see who he's friends were, and there were just a whole lot of girls. That put her off immediately and she did not invite him or accept him. But this just goes to show you how naive she really is - thinking that people will be honest on facebook and there aren't some perverts running around out there and that will make up profiles just to catch out girls like her!!

[psxkim]

Is someone writing on your wall or using your profile to write stuff?

The latter meaning your account being hacked.

In the first case, ensure you have the security options to as the other users have already specifed in this thread....meaning visibility only to friends.

There are some loons out there and some users are not aware of the dangers.

Cheers

[AllisonW]

I have been on facebook for over two years and have (touch wood ) had no problems so far. That said i am very selective about who accept as friends. I only accept people that i know well (in real life as someone put it!) I will not accept people that are vague acquaintances or a friend of a friend. I dont even have work people on there as I use facebook to share my photos with family overseas etc so i have issues about the all my collaegues seeing me in my private space.

Facebook is great for keeping in contact with people and i really feel part of my friends in canada, Australia and Ireland. I can check their status everyday and know what is happening in their lives.

But caution is vital.

Al

[Dax]

I believe that hackers make use of password crackers on platforms like FaceBook. Nowadays password-cracking software can be downloaded from the Internet.

This is a very good reason why Internet users should use strong passwords. It OK to use pass phrases as well, such as Mary has a little lamb. The upper/lower case letters plus the spaces and the full stop makes for quite a strong password/phrase.

However, pass phrases could be a bit tedious, and a solution might be a pass word based on on a phrase. Thus, Mary had a little lamb could become: Mhall. This is a medium strength password which could be turned into a very strong (almost unbreakable) password by adding number as well as a symbol or two like the following examples:

Mhall.75 or Mhall-45 etc. another variant on this example: Mhall-101-Mhall

Always use phrases/passwords that are well known to you, in order not to forget it. Also note that I said that a very strong password is "almost" unbreakable. The thing is that if you give hackers and their bags of trick enough time they will break most passwords, but in the case of a very strong password they need a lot of time, which they don't always have on a platform like FaceBook. Therefore, for the purposes of something like FaceBook (it's only my opinion, keep in mind), a password equivalent oF Mhall-101-Mhall is quite safe and "unbrakeable". A hacker will quickly realise he/she's up against a strong password and would go and look for easier pickings elsewhere.

Other ideas for www safety include:

* Log onto the web as a user, not as administrator, there are hackers out there who trawl the www for administrators on-line, as there as richer picking if they can hack into an administrators account/privileges.

* Try and use anti-spy ware or a firewall like Safety.Net which allows you to surf the www in invisble mode. Safety.Net can be downloaded as freeware from MajorGeeks.com.

* Don't use encrypted volumes on your hard drive unless you have to, or if you are an advanced IT person. Any hacker worth his/her salt will not leave you Hard Drive alone if they discover an encrypted volume on your machine. It's almost like a boy-dog that smells a girl-dog which is in season - sorry if the analogy sounds a bit crude

Encryption is very handy especially if you want to send e-mails that cannot be intercepted but be careful what you use. Cryptainer has freeware products that are quite user-friendly as well as universal, but once again, be careful and remember strong passwords.

Hope this helps,

Dax

[catz]

I dont even have work people on there as I use facebook to share my photos with family overseas etc so i have issues about the all my collaegues seeing me in my private space.

You do know that you can create "lists" that you can allow certain friends to see some or none of your photos?? Have a look under your security settings for your albums!!!

[KirstyP]

As and aside - there is a facebook messgage going around that says that your profile has been hacked... as soon as it is opened a virus is uploaded to your pc.