Are You at Risk? We hear about these things but never really think it’ll happen to us. It just happened to me!
I got an email with this as the subject line – “Security Alert from Facebook”. I thought it was a scam, “Yeah right, like I’m going to fall for that one”.
This was the opening dialogue – “Hi Peter,
Our systems indicate that your Facebook account has been compromised by cybercriminals attempting to impersonate you. These criminals often will try to trick your friends into sending them money by claiming that you are stuck in a far away location and need assistance. It is possible that your email account was compromised as well…”
It had a strange reply email address along with an odd web address to “update” your info. You can understand my scepticism.
I was just going to ignore it and move on but when I went to log in to my Facebook account – “Account Disabled!”
OMG, it was true. I was “Facebook-LESS”. The short story version of the “fix” was I replied to the email, updated all my email passwords and followed all the other instructions but I had to wait another 36 hours before my account was reactivated. Luckily, everything was still intact in my account, I was sweating on that cause I’d loaded a lot of video’s and stuff.
The other worry was “Had these criminals tricked any friends into sending money?” Apparently not, that was lucky! I’d hate to see your money wasted with a stranger. But, hey, if you’re feeling generous, I’m always good for more cash – Let’s go with that part – my PayPal account is 😆 xx xxx xx.
The moral of the story is stuff like this can happen to you and does happen to people close to you.
We help clients get better SEO rankings and one of the ways is by leveraging off Social Media Marketing. My password portfolio is over 500 passwords. I’ve set up dozens of different social media accounts for clients and linked them to their website so obviously I needed access to those accounts.
Imagine trying to keep a handle on your own plus dozens of client’s details. Obviously security is a major issue – I use RoboForm and couldn’t manage without it.
So, don’t let this happen to you. Get safe and secure and update your passwords regularly, RoboForm will help you keep a handle on it all.
They have a free version; you can get that here –
or you can go Pro which has no limitations on passwords stored and a few extra bonuses like password backups and stuff – you can see that here –
Most of us are resistant to updating passwords because we get to “know” them and it can be a pain to do but identity fraud is becoming more common and is now a global problem, do be on guard.
To sort out the aftermath of a hacker is a lot more of a pain, let me tell you!
Thanks for this Peter, being in the web biz I just couldn’t believe this couldn’t believe this could happen to me, but sure enough they managed to get through and post on the FB chat I had left open for less than 24 hours. It’s only been about 24 hours since they suspended and i’m guessing a lot of people get hit, but I was relieved to find your post, thanks!