Saturday 2 June 2012
A friend of mine was outraged and baffled at the same time when several of his Facebook friends called his attention to an indecent photo that was posted on his wall. What was so disgraceful about it was that it was my friend, himself, who supposedly posted it. As a result, he was blocked by some people and was reported to Facebook.
Of course it wasn’t really my friend who posted that photo and eventually he was able to clear his name with Facebook. Nevertheless, he felt very much concerned and violated.
What happened to my friend is the work of a “hacker”, who is someone who uses his computing skills to gain unauthorized access to information. In computing terminology, hacking, or also known as hijacking, is the act of intentionally accessing information without the owner’s permission. Hacking Facebook accounts results to the violation of people’s privacy.
With the popularity of Facebook, millions upon millions of people worldwide have a Facebook account. Most of them do not know that for hackers, hacking Facebook accounts is quite easy. For example, a hacker needs only a particular software, which he can use even on his android phone to get the usernames and passwords of Facebook users in a particular WiFi zone.
The software, known as a sniffer, has the capability to “sniff” information like the username and password of your Facebook account – as long as you are accessing it in the same network as he is, such as in the same WiFi network. The hacker then accesses your account and can do almost anything with it: get your profile info, send private messages to your friends, post on your wall, and even unfriend your friends!
Obviously, no one wants to experience this kind of intrusion. Here are some ways through which you can better protect yourself and your Facebook account from unauthorized access by other people:
Secure Browsing
When you log-in to your account, your username and password are sent to Facebook over the internet using a data transfer protocol known as HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). In HTTP, usernames and the corresponding passwords are sent in plain text form (readily readable) and thus can easily be used in hacking Facebook accounts once the sniffer software catches/retrieves the transmitted data
A more secure way of transmitting data is through HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer; don’t worry we will not get into a technical discussion of these terms). In HTTPS, there is an added security because the data that is sent over the internet is encrypted. In other words, the usernames and passwords are not in a readable form.
The default setting in Facebook is HTTP but there is a facility to change it to HTTPS: Go toAccount Settings > Security > Secure Browsing (enable).
Private Browsing
You may not be aware of this but every time you use a computer, your information is stored on that computer. This includes the sites that you visit, online games you play, files you downloaded and even your username and password.
Before you log-in to your Facebook account in a computer that is not your own, such as in an internet café, it is advisable that you enable the “Private Browsing” option so that your information will not be saved in that computer (at least for that particular session).
In Mozilla Firefox, click on Tools > Start Private Browsing or press Ctrl+Shift+P.
In Windows Internet Explorer, click on Tools > InPrivateBrowsing or press Ctrl+Shift+P.
In Google Chrome, click on the wrench icon on the toolbar, select New Incognito Window or press Ctrl+Shift+N.
Once you exit your session, the information about that session is completely erased from the computer.
Monitoring Facebook Sessions
Upon logging-in to Facebook, you may have been asked to assign a “device name” to the computer you are using. This would help you monitor your Facebook sessions by identifying devices that you normally use. To see a list of these devices, go to Account Settings > Security > Recognized Devices.
You can also opt to be notified through email or text message if your account is accessed in a device that is not among your recognized devices. Just go to Account Settings > Security > Login Notifications (enable & select your preferred notification method/s)
To monitor your active sessions, go to Account Settings > Security > Active Sessions. From there you will be able to check if someone else is currently accessing your account or if you forgot to log out from another device. You can end a particular session by clicking end activity. This is known as a “remote log out”.
Password Security
An additional security to make hacking Facebook accounts much more difficult for hackers is to have a strong password. Ideally, it should have a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. Of course, it should be something that you can remember.
As a safety precaution, you have to set up your password recovery service by entering a security question and a recovery email account. Also, treat your password as you do your other sensitive information such as credit card number, personal identification number and the likes. As much as possible, do not share or give out your password to others. If there is ever a need to do so, do not send it via Facebook private message or email.
Think Before You Click
As the online saying goes, everything on the net is just a click away. However, some of the nastiest things that can happen to you in the World Wide Web also begin with a click.
There is such a thing called “clickjacking”, in which clicking a link in a Facebook post may automatically install a software in your computer and/or post the same link on the walls of all your friends.
And so, it is wise to “think before you click”. Click on links only from reputable sources.
When you do encounter clickjacking in the form of a post on your wall, report/block the particular post.
Recovering Your Account
If ever your Facebook account gets hacked, you may still recover it by going tohttps://www.facebook.com/hacked/. Simply follow the steps in order to recover your hacked account.
You may also be interested in having a copy of all your Facebook activities. Go to Account Settings > General > Download a copy. It may take a while but this will download a copy to your hard drive of everything that you ever did in Facebook as far back as day one!
As the online world thrives, danger lurks in every corner. We should always be on the alert. Yes, hackers will continue to come up with new ways and develop new tools to carry out their activities. But in the same way, we can come up with new ways and develop new tools by which to thwart their plans. We only need to be a step ahead to prevent them from doing what they do, such as hacking Facebook accounts.
For hackers, it is just a game and we are almost always forced to play defense. But as they say in sports, it is good defense that win games.
You may also visit https://www.facebook.com/safety to learn more about security and safety for Facebook users.
