Bitter/Sweet Professional Achievement

Bitter because I had to deal with my mum’s Facebook profile being hacked. 1) Facebook is notoriously difficult to deal with. 2) It was my mum’s profile.

Sweet because I sorted it out and kicked the intruder off her account!

What I want to share with you is how I found out and what steps and repairs I had to do to bring things under control again.

First, I knew about it when I was scrolling through my personal timeline and came across a notification that my mum’s profile photo had been updated, replacing her nice smiley picture with a rather grim-looking Latina woman! My knees weakened at this stage…

My mum is not an active Facebook user. She’s rather passive and not connected to too many people, mostly friends and family we both know.

There are however other ways of knowing your Facebook has been hacked, here are few more:

• you randomly received a re-set code you haven’t requested – for everything in the world DO NOT IGNORE IT – go and change your password immediately
• Your name or birthday has changed but you still can log into your account - change your password
• Friend requests have been sent to people you don't know but you still can log into your account - change your password.
• Messages have been sent that you didn't write but you still can log into your account - change your password.
• Posts or ads have been made that you didn't create but you still can log into your account - change your password.
• if your email address or password has changed, you have to do what I describe below

?

Step 1

I tried to log in and obviously failed. Both the username and password had been changed in the last 20 hours at this point. And please believe me when I say mum’s password wasn’t a weak one. It was a random password: letters and numbers, capital and lowercase.

Step 2

The next step was to go to facebook.com/hacked – this partially uncovered what emails and phone numbers I could use to obtain a password reset code. I recognised one of the numbers and requested a code expecting it to come to mum’s mobile. Nothing happened.?

The best way was to panic! Obviously! What else! Once I enjoyed this little moment, stepped away from my desk, had something to eat even though at this stage I had completely lost my appetite, I had a light bulb moment! I was trying to get that code from my laptop, so let’s try it from my mobile! This was the right move. The code arrived, and I successfully logged in and made an immediate password change.?

Stage Three

Securing things.?

Whatever my opinion about Facebook, this one thing they seem to get right. They do not allow you to delete any emails or phone numbers from your profile if you are using a device you don’t frequently use. This saved mum’s account. Protecting the phone number and email, we were able to access. The hacker, using random devices, couldn’t delete our legitimate contacts. Neither could I, being in the UK and using my regular devices, remove the hacker's emails and phone numbers. But at least at this stage, I was in charge of mum’s account!?

Stage Four: Proper Tidy

Until I was able to remove the hacker's details, I remained feeling uncomfortable. As soon as I was able to get hold of mum’s regular laptop, I was on it!?

• I deleted the hacker's phone numbers and email addresses.
• I made mum’s email a priority one.
• I had to go through messages and block/delete any that were a result of the intrusion.
• I had to go through groups as mum suddenly became a member of quite a few of them, all in the US and all about searching for employment. I made sure mum ‘left’ all those groups.
• I had to go through her connections and remove about 10-15 strangers.

Quite a bit of work, I’d say. What annoys me is that there are people out there who go to all this trouble to make other people’s lives difficult. Why? Can someone tell me why? Don’t worry, I know the answer – life is unfair. However, if it wasn’t for this bittersweet experience, I wouldn’t be able to share it here with you.

I’m hoping this might help someone.