Facebook has become very popular in recent years, to the point that virtually any user with Internet access owns (or has owned) an account on this famous social network. The very presence of so many profiles and so many shared personal information has attracted the attention of hackers and scammers, ready to steal access data and the identity of unsuspecting Facebook users, leading to problems of a legal nature.In this regard we have created this guide, where we show you the methods used by hackers to carry out password theft on Facebook, so you can adopt the appropriate countermeasures to protect our account from unauthorized access. All the suggestions in the guide are very valid to significantly increase security and are easy to apply even for users who do not chew a lot of information technology.
Article Index
- Facebook password theft via keylogger
- Password discovered by the browser used
- Network packet analysis and hacker techniques
- Increase the security of your Facebook account
- Account Recovery
1) Facebook password theft via keylogger
The most effective way to steal your Facebook password and perform identity theft is the hidden installation of a keylogger, which is a PC program that can capture all the keys pressed on the keyboard at a given time. With this malicious program installed on the computer, all the passwords of our services are at risk and not only that of the Facebook account: with a little cunning the hacker will have the username and password available to access our account on social media, compromising our identity.
Keyloggers can be either hardware or software: the former is practically invisible, but require proximity to the PC, while the latter behave like viruses that infect the system. Fortunately, most keyloggers require the physical presence of the hacker close to our PC: so a good way to protect yourself is to always check who comes close to our workstation, periodically check the USB ports for strange devices we don’t know and avoid to leave computers or terminals unattended on which we have often accessed from Facebook.
To stop instead the software keyloggers masked by viruses, it is sufficient to adopt a good antivirus, like the ones recommended in our dedicated guide -> Best Free Antivirus for PC. If instead we wanted even more security, we will also have to choose a good firewall and a good antimalware program, so as to be able to catch any type of threat escaped by the antivirus (perhaps by applying scans outside the operating system or at startup).
READ ALSO -> Better combination of programs to protect your computer
2) Password discovered by the browser used
One of the simplest methods that the hacker can use to steal identity on Facebook involves the use of a PC or a smartphone in which we have already logged into the profile or where we have the passwords saved in the browser (internal or by extension). If the password is saved for automatic access, we know that it is very easy to find out the password behind the dots or asterisks.
In this case we will have to take care to lock the PC when we are away from our workstation, perhaps using the tools provided by Windows or dedicated programs, or by using an anonymous browser page for Facebook access (especially on a company computer or on a shared public computer). To avoid most of the dangers, we invite you to read our guide on incognito, available here -> When to use incognito.
3) Password theft by analyzing packages
This method quickly fell out of use as soon as Facebook forced HTTPS connections for all profiles, but in the past few years it has been one of the most used methods to steal Facebook passwords. The hacker connected to a public Wi-Fi network and started a network sniffer, with which it captured all the navigation packages of the other users who used the same hotspot network: without encryption, the Facebook access data could be recovered, it was enough to have only patience. Although now this method is no longer applicable in such a simple way, you can still hack Facebook in different ways on the net, so if we want to dramatically increase the security of browsing on public networks we recommend using a VPN service, so as to add further encryption to our connection.
READ ALSO: How to hack a Facebook account
4) Increase the security of your Facebook account
If we are afraid of falling victim to an attack on our Facebook profile, we can increase access security by enabling two-factor authentication: in order to enter Facebook, we will also have to enter a special code provided via SMS or via app during login. In this way, even if the hacker has managed to retrieve the username and password of our Facebook account, in order to access it, he must also own our mobile, thus increasing the risk of being discovered (stealing a device is not as easy as stealing password). If we intend to activate this security system on your Facebook account and on all other accounts at risk “hacker”, we invite you to read our dedicated guide -> Secure authentication to access Facebook, Google, Amazon and other services.
In addition to access to two factors, we can increase the security of the account by receiving notification of access to your Facebook account via email, so that you always know who is accessing our profile, in which city and with what method.
READ ALSO: Protect Facebook with security settings
5) Conclusion
Fortunately, hacker methods are impossible to counteract (in most cases), you just need to be aware of making a minimum of attention and activate all the necessary countermeasures: hackers are already good at them, let’s not make their lives even easier ! If we look for a way to increase the privacy of our Facebook account, we refer you to reading our guide with explanations of Facebook privacy settings.
If we have already suffered an identity theft and want to recover our Facebook account, we need to act promptly by reading the guides below:
– How to recover access to a stolen or hacked account
– Enter Facebook without a password if the account has been hacked