Sandy Jankovic, the owner of Sandy’s Grille, woke up Thursday with several calls and text messages from friends alerting her to a Facebook hack.
The hackers posted a Bitcoin message, pretending to be Jankovic and connecting her business Facebook account to investing $1,000 and receiving a $10,000 profit within 3 hours. The hackers also private messaged friends on Facebook, pretending to be Jankovic and encouraging them to send money to invest in Bitcoin.
“I don’t want anyone in this town to get hurt financially. I want to make sure people know it’s not me,” Jankovic told Sebastian Daily.
When Jankovic tried to log into her Facebook account, it prompted her to change the password. But when doing so, Facebook locked her out.
As of right now, the Bitcoin messages have disappeared, but she can no longer gain access to Facebook.
However, when friends reported the hack and notified Facebook that the account was compromised, the social media company locked the account down. It’s a standard security measure that could last for a few hours or even days.
How Do Hackers Gain Access?
There are a lot of ways a hacker can access a Facebook account. Sometimes they just create another account profile pretending to be another person. But other times, they get the password.
Some hackers build fake websites that look and appear like Facebook. Then, they send out an email to the account owner asking them to change their password. When the recipient clicks on the link inside the email, it goes to the hacker’s fake website asking for the current password of their Facebook account. Then they use the information to gain access.
Facebook Security
Facebook does have excellent security, but many people get lost in the settings area of their accounts. So it’s always good to do a Privacy Checkup with your account.
To run a Privacy Checkup, click the down-arrow from the top right and click on Settings & Privacy, then click Privacy Checkup. Then, answer some questions and allow Facebook to do the rest.