How to hack facebook

There seems to be a growing trend online of people wanting to hack other people’s Facebook account. It is quite amazing how few people realize that this is actually illegal, since any online accounts are considered private property, just like someone’s home. People seem to understand that breaking and entering into someone’s home is illegal and definitely not something to ask online, yet they don’t see that hacking into someone’s account is just as bad. Then, of course, there are those who understand this but are in the “business” of identity theft. Although, it is highly unlikely you will find these folks asking online how to do it. How to hack facebook accounts.

Now, to be able to protect yourself from these hacking attempts you need to understand how it is done and also what can happen as a result. It’s not as difficult as it may seem, if you know what you are doing, so we will be looking at a few ways it can be done by creating some hypothetical case studies. This way you will know what steps to take to protect your account and private information, as well as that of your friends.

One way a stranger can gain access to your account is by checking your friends list, which is public. This person then chooses one of your friends, downloads their picture and copies their publicly available information and then proceeds to set up a copycat account. Since Facebook is very user friendly this will take them less than a minute to do.
Once the account is set up this person sends you a friend request and since you believe you know this person you accept and suddenly a stranger has access to all your information and you have no idea something is wrong. It is frightening how simple it really is. The problem is that there is no way you can check whether or not a friend request is legitimate or not.

There are certain ways to deal with this issue. First and foremost, don’t just switch to automatic pilot when accepting friends. You know you do it. You have so much stuff to go through so you don’t bother to check the person’s profile so you just click, click, click your way into supplying some stranger with your private information. Before you just accept a new friend have a good look at their picture and check out their profile. If their profile is very sketchy with little information then it is very likely this is a copycat account. You can also check for common friends, if you think that maybe it’s a real request, but if you have absolutely no friends in common then maybe you should be a little more circumspect before accepting.

Also, you should never add strangers. Just like people teach their children not to talk to strangers, why would you add a complete stranger as a friend, especially since you can never know who is hiding behind the computer screen. It’s much better to be safe rather than sorry. Another step you can take is to limit your profile so only people you add to your list can see your profile, it will involve more work and a little extra time but it is worth it in the long run.

A lot of these hackers rely on human psychology to gain access to your information. They know the statistics, namely that 40% of friend requests are accepted, no questions asked. To make it even easier for themselves they set up an account with the sweetest photo they can find, so sweet that it can give you cavities, and the nicest name in the world. Who is going to believe that a cute kitten is actually intent on uncovering their private information and intends to use it for their own personal gain?

Social networks make it easy for these people to prey on the unsuspecting since they can hide behind their computers and no one is any the wiser. So, you must be as cautious online as you are offline. You wouldn’t give your information to just anyone who walked up to you in the middle of the street and asked for your address, phone number, list of friends and the places you like to go, now would you? So why do it online? You have to make sure you check the veracity of the friend requests you receive by at least checking out their profile, and even asking your friends if they know this person. Don’t fall into the trap of the childish competition of “I have more friends than you do”, since a lot of these hackers exploit this weakness.

Now, this discussion may have been for naught if you have your profile set to public. That’s like putting an advertisement in the paper calling all stalkers to come pay you a visit, with your home address and phone number as well. Set it to private, now! You can let people search for you, but make sure you are in control of what they can see.
You are probably thinking to yourself by now things along the lines of, what can anyone use birthdays for or other such information? Well, the answer is simple, a lot of services, including banks, use your birthday and other such information to verify your identity. The best way to avoid these issues is to try and refrain from supplying too much information that can be used to verify your identity. We all know that the internet is about sharing information and making friends, but do you give, even your closest offline friends, your banking details and credit card verification codes? I think not. So why would you supply someone you don’t know, online with all your information?

Another pitfall is when you innocently announce to the entire world that you are going to be on holiday starting tomorrow, for a week. It probably never crosses your mind that this is a way to let any felons know that your house will be empty for a week. You might as well mail them the key as well. You wonder how they can discover your address? The sad thing is they probably already know it because this person may be a friend you think you made online who you have been talking to regularly and you have disclosed information about yourself, never realizing this person had any ulterior motives. So, maybe it would be wiser just to call the people you know to tell them that you are going away. Or better yet, don’t tell anyone, especially if your home will be empty.

It is frightening to realize how much something you considered as innocent as making friends online can impact you offline. Maybe now that you know you will take steps to protect yourself and then you won’t have any regrets. It’s always better to be a little more paranoid than to cry later. Knowing how hackers normally hack facebooks account can better secured your facebook account.

Tagged as: hacking facebook, how to hack facebook, how to hack facebook account