Social Media Hacking and Cybercrime Prevention
If you’ve been online for a while, then it’s entirely possible that your Facebook or email account has been hacked. Typically, what happens is that you begin to receive emails from concerned friends and colleagues, alerting you to the fact that they’ve received an odd email from you or your social media account is posting odd things.
Embarrassing? You bet. But this is the reality of the Internet Age — online fraud is part of the program.
Unprotected social media use can not only damage your brand, it can rob you blind.
The fact is, if you are not careful, if you don’t take some simple but necessary precautions, your Facebook account can easily get hacked, your Twitter account can get usurped, even your bank account can be robbed.
Yes, you heard me right.
Unprotected social media use can not only damage your brand, but it can also rob you blind. According to the FBI, in the past few years, bad guys transferred more than $100 million out of small business bank accounts by getting online bank login information, using among other things, social media.
Online Fraud and The Self-Employed
For example, a while back, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez’s account was hacked and fraudulently had him discussing drug use. A couple of years ago, the Barack Obama for President Twitter account was hacked, telling people they could “possibly win $500 in free gas” by taking an online survey (with link).
Here’s how these schemes work: Say that someone you know or trust instructs you to follow a link. So you unknowingly click over to the corrupted site, which looks every bit as normal as a real site, and maybe you click an infected link, or maybe it’s a faux-Facebook page and you are asked to login. Whatever the case, once you do, malware is then installed onto your computer, without you ever knowing it. That malware might be, for example:
• Key logging software that records you keystrokes, which in turn allows the criminals to figure out your passwords, and then login to your social media accounts — or even your bank.
• Software that sends out fake social media messages as if it were you.
According to Haley, the danger with social media is that we tend to trust the information we receive from people on such platforms, since we know them. Given that, the bad messages can come from either someone you know who unknowingly gets corrupted and sends you the bad link (“watch this cool video!”), or from the bad guys themselves who send messages your way in an attempt to fake you out (“Someone from the class of 1998 is looking for you, click here to see who asked about you.”)
Whatever the case, once you click the bad link, according to Haley, “Bam, you’re owned!”
Instituting Online Fraud Prevention Strategies for Your Business
So what do you do and how can you protect yourself? The first thing is to get the right software. You want an integrated suite that will block intruders and viruses, detect and prevent the installation of other sorts of malware, and protect your privacy.
Additionally, it is important to institute policies and educate employees about the dangers of using file sharing programs and free programs and updates downloaded from the Internet.
Also, if you don’t already, monitor your social media output. Infected accounts can send out ongoing malicious messages without you ever knowing if you are not watching.
Finally, change your passwords, often.
