Hacking can damage a person’s reputation and cost them thousands in lost advertising revenue. This is what happened to Dale Berry, the owner of an elementary school English academy in Japan who had his Facebook account hacked by fraudsters. Hackers used his account to create fraudulent ads, destroying his business and ruining his reputation.
Hackers first target people who have weak passwords, such as «qwerty» or «password.» They then impersonate a friend to ask for a code to reset the password. The hackers then take advantage a security feature which allows users to add trusted contacts to their account in case they forget their password. They can then ask these trusted friends to provide them with the unique code that allows them to gain access to the account.
Selling stolen login credentials is another method hackers can gain access. Recently an inventory of 26 million Amazon, LinkedIn, and Facebook passwords were uncovered available on the dark web. A large portion of them were leaked via custom Trojan malware that infiltrated millions of Windows-based computers between 2018 to 2020.
Users can be protected from these attacks by making sure that the address bar on their browser is Facebook and not some other website. They should also choose a password that combines numbers as well as letters and spaces and never reuse the same password for other social media or email accounts. Additionally, they should check their activity notifications frequently. Twitter for instance, sends out notifications when there’s an unusual login on an unfamiliar device or location.