How attached are you to your cell phone? For me, my Android is my life – wherever I go, I have my trusty Android by my side, ready to aid me in my daily adventures. I use it in my freelance work, I use it to connect with friends and I use it to turn off and chill out when my brain just can’t take anymore. It is both my shield and my connector for any human contact. As a reliable business tool, I can’t risk anything compromising the security of my cell phone and all of its contents.
I have apps that protect my phone as well as many social media apps that are what I call, a necessary evil. Why would I call them that? Well most social media apps are run and owned by giants of the industry, they are what they would like to call, infallible to any attack. But as history dictates, there is always an evil of equal power ready to take advantage of the unprepared.
I, like many of you, believed that I was more than prepared and protected when I noticed a tiny irregularity within my phone’s normal behavior. My Facebook account had signed out by itself and when I tried to log in, it told me my password was wrong. Long story short, a friend’s Facebook hacked account had sent me a normal looking message, one that I stupidly clicked on, (because it wasn’t unusual behavior for that friend to send me links). I didn’t sign up for anything, I didn’t submit any information, yet my account was compromised.
Facebook hacked account – beware friends
I have well over 400 friends on my Facebook – all of which I know in person. Some are business associates, friends, family and some ex’s… The point is, any one of them can have their Facebook hacked account infect my own account, if only one of them doesn’t protect their mobile devices from hackers and online scammers. That one innocent looking message set my day into chaos. Since I clicked the link by my own accord, my apps didn’t detect a problem until later in the day, when I managed to alert Facebook of what had happened. It took less than 48 hours to gain control back from the hackers, but thankfully, the damage was controlled.
I had no personal information on my profile, not an address, nor saved personal details in my messages. I got off lucky. My friend, not so much. He thinks that he probably visited an unsecure app on Facebook, one that asks you to enter your details to reveal something about you. He didn’t notice that he was locked out of his Facebook hacked account until a couple days when he tried to log in. He had saved his credit card details in a message that he sent to himself (To make online purchases easier for him) and the hackers quickly made off with the contents of his credit card, maxing it out and leaving him with the debt.
Although I don’t know what he did to fix his financial problem, I did immediately send him a few good suggestions for security apps to prevent this from happening again. There is only one way to protect you from cyber-attacks, and that’s caution. My friends Facebook hacked account is a light example of what could potentially be a very costly and dangerous situation.
Protecting yourself and your mobile devices
- Download a reliable and trusted security app
- Don’t click on suspicious looking messages
- Keep all of your social media on check – don’t give more information than you need to
- Keep up to date with the latest information for security on your phone – as hackers get smarter and learn to bypass security, you need to keep up with lasted in protection
Article Submitted By Community Writer