A friend was “possessed“ by a hacker, in both hotmail account and facebook account. The hacker attacked friend's hotmail and Facebook account to send messages about his difficult situation in China, as well as asking for money. The message also mentioned that now he (my friend possessed by the hacker) has been working with a program called “Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and lack of Education”, with the bank account in Western Union associated with the address in China.
It's obvious that this friend is hacked. After searching the Google with the keyword of this program, it’s easy to find out this is just an old skin game someone from Nigeria successfully used years ago. The address the hacker offered is a business building in a downtown of a city in China, without specific room or office number. It's very possible that the name the hacker offered at Western Union can be also phony. Later on, after the hacker's identity was revealed on Facebook, he gave us his real attention was to get some money and buy the software he could not afford.
So it’s obviously a skin game but it’s annoying. First it’s about China’s well-known situation; second it’s directly harming my friends and friends’ friends’ security at the social network online; third it’s also an adorable hacker for he is still trying to get the help to get the copyrighted software instead of buying the pirate ones at the booth on the street in China(if what he said is true). He has been handled to the "cyber police", and his IP address will be traced. If the hacker was using public wireless, which is accessible in most of hotels, coffee shops and libraries, he is harder to be found, unless there was video camera caught him in the tape. Also, with the Proxy tools assisting, the hacker could protect his real physical location very easy if he planed ahead. From the information he offered, this should be a very sophisticated hacker and he planed everything ahead of time. So, Good luck with the tracings, "cyber police".
Now, back to the point, if all are a annoying trick, here is what we can do:
protect ourselves, pray for the computer scientists education and peace education and love the hacker.
1. Password protection
It's common that we use only one password in all of our accounts during the whole life and it's not safe. We may need to protect the online accounts with a more complicated password and change the password every other week if you think your account's stolen might be affecting a number of people, specially with the Facebook and web 2.0 exaggerating the effect. Also, please do NOT store your password online, for where you store the password might also be hacked. Write it on a piece of paper or memorize it in your head, then mark certain dates of changing password on the calendar. It's just a way of protecting yourself, as well as your online network. The more important you are, the more people you might be affecting, and the more complicated your password should be like, as well as the more frequent you might need to think about changing the password.
2. Do not add random software/ applications on Facebook.
Applications are attempting since they the tremendous tools to make the online socializing easier, but here is the reason why we'd better say no for applications. Application is the third party apart from Facebook. Your personal information might be collected by this third party, for developing the application, updating the application, marketing or commercial reasons. Now imagine this third party is attacked and all your personal information is exposed to the hacker, which is not bad, and the worst part is when the hacker is using the high speed calculating software to decode your password and access your important online account, banking account , social networking accont, or even email, it might be a bigger headache. This is just one example of how hackers work with web 2.0. Thus, to protect ourselves and friends, let's just be more protective at the password.
Here is an article about the facebook starter in how to start saftly, personally I think it covers most of the security issues about the facebook using and it's worthy to read.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2263&tag=rbxccnbzd1 3. Then, don't forget to set up your
privacy as high as possible, sepcially in front of the strangers.
Here are the steps: After Login to facebook, at the top-right of the Facebook page, move your mouse on the “Settings” button, a menu will be dropped down, then click “Privacy Settings“, then the "Privacy" page will show up. Now click “Search” to set up who can find you and what kind of information can be found by the strangers. It's just let yourself less exposed to the unknown network. But if you want to be "popular" and be found by the random peoples, do NOT be too strict in the privacy settings, for you may also miss the chance of new relationship or connection by doing so.
It's open social and the innocent users are vulnerable.
4. Last, after preparing for the password, privacy settings, we are ready to go and love the hacker (if you are computer savvy, please do this step if you know some hackers email address/ facebook account. But this is not recommended for the starter.) It’s like offering another chick after got hit once.
What we can do now:
1. Pray for the hacker. (If you believe the Prayer)
2. Love the hacker.
Again, do NOT do the things below if you are NOT a computer savvy.
This friend/hacker is already deleted from all, but we can still search and find this "friend" by searching the friend's name. The friend/hacker will be shown on the top of your list if he was your friend before. What you can do is to "add him as a friend" or to "send him message". Please don't execute the former option, ut do send the hacker a message, a verse of love, or a willingness of offering help.
Good luck, friends, victims and hackers!
