First of all, I want to thank you for being here. In this post, I am going to explain to you, what type of Facebook scams are currently circulating and what type of phishing attacks you can expect in the future.
It is my daily job, to find these type of attacks, and I can tell you, that they have been getting more advanced.
Cybercriminals and Hackers
Cybercriminals and hackers are always on the search for victims, they will try to infect their victims in 1001 ways and more, and it might come to a surprise, but they are often very successful.
The hackers and cybercriminals which are successful in deploying Facebook scams and Facebook phishing attacks, have often been doing this for a couple of years, and they know the tips people use to identify their attacks, so they will take extra effort in to hiding these signatures.
Signatures on how to detect a Facebook scam or Phishing attack
The battle on the internet is a daily battle, which will evolve each day, so it is important to take a look at the tips, which are provided. These tips will allow you to identify Facebook scams and Facebook Phishing attacks within seconds, and it will allow you to act in the right order to get rid of them.
Tip number 1: Stay on Facebook
If you are an active Facebook user, and you have provided a lot of personal information to the social media network, I strongly advice you, to stay on the Facebook domain, while you are using Facebook.
In other words; Do not click on links which will lead you to pages which are outside the https://Facebook.com domain
This tip is advised because the Facebook domain is already taking precautions against malicious environments on their domain, and it is more accessible to recognize Facebook scams and Phishing attacks on the domain itself, because Facebook will NEVER ask for your credentials again, once you have logged in.
Tip number 2: Do not install any kind of Facebook application or Browser plugin on your Facebook device/account
This tip is recommended to follow as it urges you to take precaution when installing applications on your device or Facebook account. Cybercriminals and hackers have been building fake Facebook applications and browser plug-in, which will steal personal information from the victims. The information is then used by the cybercriminals or hackers to perform various illegal tasks.
In this post, you are able to view 43 types of fake applications which are designed to steal personal information from the victims which have installed the fake applications.
Tip number 3: Do not give your password to anyone
It is common for some people to share their credentials with their family or friends that they trust, I strongly urge you to stop sharing this type of information. A password has been designed so that only the operator will know the key to the specific environment.
If you start sharing the credentials with your environment, you will never be certain which will use it. It is also possible that your environment might leak your credentials (by accident) to cybercriminals or hackers.
Tip number 4: Use long passwords
Did you know that you can use a sentence as a password. Sentences are much harder to brute force, and it is nearly impossible to guess.
“thisismypasswordanditisalongsentencewithaspaceattheend “
The password above is 54 characters long and it will take 202 octodecillion years to crack the password with a desktop computer.
Tip number 5: If Facebook claims that you have to do something via email
If you ever receive an email from Facebook, which claims that you have to perform a task which includes providing your credentials, then simply navigate to the official Facebook website, and make sure that you login via the official Facebook website.
Once you have logged in, you will be able to view the “important” message which Facebook has send to you. If you are unable to view that message, then you can simply delete that message from your email inbox. Facebook will never ask for your credentials via email or telephone.
Tip number 6: Do not participate in surveys
Hackers and scammers will try to get hold on personal information by deploying surveys. These surveys are often setup in such an order that they will retrieve personal information from the victims step by step.
They will often start with some simple questions which require the name or address, and later in the survey the will ask the victim to provide the telephone number and additional information. The information which is provided to the survey is packed by the survey environment and send in a bulk to the cybercriminals or hackers, and you know already what they will do with that information.
Conclusion
Please use these 6 tips, and if you have more tips, then feel free to share them with us. I am certain that some readers might use additional tips which are provided by the community.
Happy Facebook time everyone, and stay aware and safe! (Please share this post)