Did you ever experience your Facebook account got hacked and password changed? Well you are not alone. Every day thousands of Facebook accounts got compromised and information stolen. This is really a big number. Hackers are often developing new ways and methods to trick account owners to they can break into their profiles and search for some information to get them various benefits. So in this article you’ll learn how to make your Facebook account secured and protect against most popular hacking attacks.
Basically, all hacking methods are coming from core ones from which hackers are evolving all kind of advanced ones, so to know how to protect against them you’ll need to learn about them first. As famous quote says: “To fight against enemy you need to know your enemy.”
So let’s get started.
Methods which hackers use to break into Facebook accounts:
1. Phishing
Phishing is a way of getting password trough fake login page. So hacker will make domain url to look similar to the Facebook official one, such as for example “logintofacebook.com” so people who don’t know about phishing will usually don’t look in the url address bar to see is it official Facebook domain or not. Hackers will make it look exactly like Facebook official one by simply coping all the code from Facebook page to their fake hosted page.
(To learn more about phishing in general you can read the Wikipedia article.)
– Phishers are usually spread trough emails or Facebook inbox messages from false accounts titled like “Verify you’re real owner of your account by logging in trough *this link* (phisher)” and similar methods like these.
To protect against phisher you just need to be careful when logging in and simply just look in the address bar to check for Facebook official domain. Some antivirus programs has protections against phishers integrated in itself already, so it’s recommended to have it installed.
2. Keyloggers
Keylogging is monitoring someones keystrokes from another PC using software called keylogger. So to get in installed in your PC hacker needs to trick you to download it and execute it. Methods for spreading are also similar as for phishers, such as trough emails, inbox messages or websites pop-ups which automatically tries to download applications on your PC.
Keyloggers can also be binded with other files such as pictures, music files or anything, so before executing it always scan it for viruses using online scanning websites like VirusTotal.com and similar ones.
To protect against keylogger always have good antivirus software installed and keep it up to date. If you one of those who don’t use antivirus software then if some file you have downloaded seems suspicious to you, just scan it on some online antivirus scanning websites. Our recommendation is VirusTotal.com.
3. Brute-Forcing
Brute forcing is way of cracking login password using either hacking software (brute-forcer) or hosted php script in a purpose of guessing the right matching password. So brute forcing is attempting all kind of passwords with different orders or letters and numbers until the right password is hit. There are many of Facebook brute forcing programs available on the internet. You can see an example of one called “Facebook Hacker v.2.9.0.“.
To protect from brute forcing attacks make strong password for your account. If your password is just one word and if it’s made just of lowercase letters or just of numbers like “ilovecookies” or “123456” then these kind of passwords are easily get break with brute-forcing programs. A strong password such as “kO78bNcl-P!14” will never get cracked with brute-forcer because these programs mostly use already pre-made lists of most regular words which uninformed people use for their passwords. So just make strong one and you don’t need to be afraid of brute forcing attack. I know it’s easier to remember the simple one word password but it’s more important to keep your Facebook account secured right?
4. Guessing a password
Ridiculously, buy your account might get hacked by this way too, specially by people who closely know you, like friend, boyfriend/girlfriend, brother etc. If your password is made of one word and if it’s something you like, for example favorite band, date of your bird and so they can easily guess it. So this is one more reason to use strong password for your account!
Some more tips to stay secured:
Limit who can message you
By setting this option, you can limit only friends and friends of friends to be able to send you a message on Facebook. This will prevent fake profiles made just for spam to send you all kind of advertising messages which can also contain phisher or be infected with viruses. So this is recommended option to be more secured. You can set it up in account privacy settings.
Hide your email address from others
To prevent someone from using your public viewable email address for spamming or trying to hack you, it’s recommended to set it’s privacy so only you can see it. If someone wants to contact you they can use inbox message instead. Nowadays a lot of spam is being spread over the internet so it’s important to keep your email address safe from black hatter’s eyes.
So this is all for now people. By reading this guide and sticking to these tips your Facebook account will stay protected and secured. If some new dangerous hacking method comes we will add it to this guide and keep it updated.
Thanks for reading!
