IT News and Information Blog

Facebook Hacking Scams  26.09.2010

Hackers are scamming Facebook users accounts and obtaining confidential information, such as needed to access their banking and credit card accounts or other sensitive information.

The hacking of Facebook accounts, planting viruses and other nasty activity has been a continuing problem for Facebook and its users, reported many times in the press.

Facebook has taken an initiative to combat the hacking. They are "implementing new ways of detecting when its users' accounts have been hacked, and is adding warnings if it is accessed from unusual locations or by different methods than usual.", reported by the Guardian.

The friends of users whose accounts have been hacked have been tricked into giving them "large sums of money".

The message for all of us is: even if you know the sender or user, call them up on the telephone BEFORE giving them personal details or money. This applies to not only Facebook, but all social networks, email or other online communication facilities, including Yahoo and MSN.

E Craig
Posts: 3

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Reply #3 on : Sun 09 January 2011

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Good timely advice – not for just using Facebook but when using the internet in general. I’ve lost count of the number of email hoaxes and scams I’ve received over the years – many asking for personal information such as passwords. The key is not to divulge this type of information over the web – so point well made.

Christopher
Posts: 3

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Reply #2 on : Tue 28 December 2010

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Facebook is definitely not the place to exchange personal / confidential information. This is good advice for anyone using social networking sites.

Rebecca
Posts: 3

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Reply #1 on : Thu 23 December 2010

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Good advice, best to avoid sending details over such websites altogether in favour for reading them out over the phone as it is uncertain how long and who will be able to access your messages/conversation.

However, isn't another threat posed by some dodgey apps?