With all the personal information users entrust to Facebook, it’s no surprise that evil doers are also on Facebook trying to take advantage, often posing as your friends. When using Facebook, you will need to be aware of scams in order to keep your personal information safe. Here are four characteristics of a fake Facebook profile that you should consider before onfirming a friendship.
Most people enjoy receiving friend requests on Facebook, it’s important to make sure you know who the person is, and that they are someone you trust with your personal information. If you accept every friend request you receive, from people you don’t know, then you will make your personal information available to hackers and other evil doers.
Whenever you accept a friend request Facebook, those people are no longer subject to your account security settings and they can view all of your posted information. In an attempt to gain access to your information, a hacker will make a fake Facebook profile and send out thousands of friend requests to random people in an effort to gain access to personal information. The fake profile may even include a profile pictures of seemingly normal people, along with other deceptive features to make a fake account appear legit.
Before accepting random friend requests, you will want to investigate the profile and judge for yourself if the account is actively being used by a real person, or if it’s something that was quickly put together by a hacker in order to access your personal data. Here are four clues that will tell you if a Facebook account is actually a fraud.
Photographs
Check out the requestors pictures. A hacker may use a legitimate looking profile picture to draw you in. and they may even add a few more generic pictures in their photo album to make the account appear more credible. Often times, the hacker will rarely use the same person for all of their pictures, this is usually the strongest indicator that an account is fake.
Joined Facebook Date- Account Created Date
A hacker can make as many fake Facebook profiles as they want, and immediately send friend requests to people at random as soon as the account is active. If the account sending you the friend request was created within the last couple of days, and there are no mutual friends in common, then it’s likely the account is fake.
Check Account Activity
With a legitimate Facebook account, the user will post regularly, even if the user posts to their profile only once a month. You should be able to view a few of their posts, giving you insight into their life. A fake profile that’s thrown together by a hacker will often not have any posts or other information on their timeline.
Send a Facebook Direct Message
You don’t have to be Facebook friends with someone to send them a direct message through Facebook. It’s okay to ask them a basic questions like, “Where do I know you from?” A hacker will rarely write you back, and if they do, you can tell from their response if they are a hacker or not. If you discover that they’re a hacker, block them from contacting you and even report them to Facebook so they won’t harass anybody else.
By limiting the access that people have to your Facebook account, you will ensure that only the people you trust will be able to see your personal information. A hacker that tricks you into a Facebook friendship will be able to view not only your e-mail address and phone number, but they will also be able to study your personal habits giving them insight into where and how you go about your life’s business. It’s also a good idea to regularly go through your friends list and remove any accounts that you don’t recognize with the above criteria, just in case a hacker was already accepted by you in the past.
Even with strong network security measures in place, your computers can still be hacked when a user falls victim to a scam. Social media websites like Facebook are wonderful networking tools that can help your business, but as is the case with any tool, you will want to first research how to use it securely before implementing it. Call Quikteks at (973) 882-4644 to learn about additional threats and scams on the Internet that you need to look out for.
Even with strong network security measures in place, your computers can still be hacked when a user falls for a scam. Social media websites like Facebook are wonderful networking tools that can help your business, but as is the case with any tool, you will want to first learn how to properly use it before implementing it. Call Quikteks at (973) 882-4644 to learn about additional threats and scams on the Internet that you need to look out for.