Tag: Social Media

How to completely backup and restore your Facebook account.

by Greg Johnson, posted in Social Media, Software, Tech Tips, Tools

In these two videos, you’ll learn how to completely backup and restore your Facebook account — even to another user account — using Acronis software. This is important in case your account gets hacked, suspended, or content is mistakenly deleted. For those wanting to shut down their Facebook presence, it provides a way to keep your content accessible.

Facebook Account Backup

Facebook Account Restore

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Source: Acronis (19 May 2017)

Facebook: Be careful when accepting friend requests from people you know.

by Greg Johnson, posted in Social Media, Tech Tips

Problem Summary

We’re all familiar with the warning to be cautious when accepting emails or social media requests from people we don’t know. Now it’s important to use caution when accepting friend requests from those we do know. Here’s why.

  • Scammers will setup a fake ‘imposter’ Facebook account using your friend’s name and maybe two or three of their photos. Then they will send you a friend request.
  • Because the friend request comes from someone you know, you’re less likely to be skeptical about it.
  • Additionally, because a few of your common friends will have already been duped into the scam, when you see the request come in,  you’ll see that you have several friends in common and that will further reassure you that the request is legitimate.

At this point, the snowball effect begins. The people behind these scams seek to build massive databases of names and personal information for identity theft, social engineering, and hacking into accounts.

You and those you know, who may have their Facebook content marked as ‘viewable by my friends and their friends’ are exposed to having all their content and list of friends stolen and misused.

So, for this reason, be VERY careful when accepting friend requests on Facebook even from people you know.

What To Do if You’re the Target

If someone has setup an imposter account pretending to be you, don’t post a message saying “my account has been hacked” because then your friends won’t know which account to trust. Explain that your account hasn’t been hacked, but that someone setup a new ‘fake / imposter’ account in your name and that you’re reporting it. Then follow the instructions on this page to report it and have it shut down.

Identification and Prevention – 3 Easy Steps

Here are three easy steps to identify and prevent fake accounts. (source)

  1. Take a few seconds to look and see if you are already friends with that person. If so, the new one is likely fake.
  2. Glance at the profile for the person making the request. Does it look legitimate? Often the fake accounts have only a few simple posts.
  3. Communicate with the person making the request. Send a message: “Hi ____, I’m just making sure this is really you.” If they reply by telling you that Facebook is giving away a million dollars, it’s probably fake.

If it’s fake, take a moment to report it quickly before the scam spreads. Use the steps below.

How to Report and Shut Down Imposters

Because this is becoming a very prevalent problem, Facebook has improved the mechanism for reporting it. Follow the instructions shown below. Click the image for a larger view. In step 4 you can indicate whether someone is pretending to be you or someone  you know.

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Further Reading

Here are some additional articles on the topic of Facebook safety and how to avoid Facebook scams.

Facebook has an official ‘how to report things‘ page.

You can view all Facebook support requests in your support inbox, including reporting of user accounts.

Tech Q&A: Why do scammers create fake Facebook accounts?

by Greg Johnson, posted in Security, Tech Tips

Q: Why do scammers create fake Facebook accounts?

A: They have a few goals:

  1. To build fake personas on Facebook which can be sold on the black market for big money.
  2. To buy or use fake personas on Facebook to sell or promote things.
  3. Once trust or acceptance is garnered, they use the profiles to post links to malicious websites that will infect people’s computers and/or steal passwords.
  4. To launch social engineering campaigns via Facebook asking friends to ‘answer these ten questions about yourself’ — in order to gather personal information about people for the purpose of identity theft or hacking into people’s accounts.

There may be other reasons as well.

What You Can Do

Fake users may ask to be friends with you on Facebook. Even if you have friends in common, be careful not to friend anyone until you’ve spent at least a few minutes checking their profile. You may want to send the person a message and ask them why they were wanting to connect. If you identify a fake account, click the three dots menu icon and select Report to report the user account as shown below. By spending a few minutes, you can protect hundreds of social media friends and contacts.

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Identifying Fake Profiles

Here are signs of a fake profile:

  • Their profile has only a few posts on the timeline.
  • There are spammy advertising-like posts on their timeline.
  • Their About page has very little information.
  • They claim to work for Facebook on their About page.
  • Although you supposedly have friends in common, you’ve never heard of the person.
  • You’re a middle-aged man and the person you’ve never met who wants to friend you is an attractive girl in her 20s or 30s.
  • The person has only a few profile pics.
  • The profile pics are suggestive.
  • The person has multiple profile pics, but of different people.
  • Their Facebook friends have unusual or seemingly fake names.