According to Singapore Police Force, there has a wide spread of scams from Facebook.
There are already 108 such cased reported just between November 2017 till January 2018.
How did the scums do it? Those scums had hacked into your Facebook or clone your Facebook account to get sensitive information or bank accounts from you.
PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE
What you should do to protect yourself from Facebook scams.
LIMIT YOUR PUBLIC VISIBILITY
The scums are always on the lookout for your Facebook friend list to target.
Hiding your list of friends on Facebook is an excellent way to prevent them from harvesting the list.
How to hide your friend list
• Go to “Friends” tab
• Click the pencil icon to edit privacy
• Change to “Me only.”
REUNION WITH YOUR LONG-LOST FRIEND
If your long-lost friend started to chat with you on Facebook messenger, he or she might not be your friend.
Maybe he or she has started to work in the insurance, property or car salesman now. You will find it weird when scums begin to ask for your private details such as phone numbers, password, OTP (one-time password).
When in doubt, reach out to your mobile phone and give your friend a call to clarify.
STRONG PASSWORDS
This method does not restrict only Facebook, but also emails, banking, hosting logins etc.
According to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Top 25 most common passwords are
- 123456
- 123456789
- qwerty
- 12345678
- 111111
- 1234567890
- 1234567
- password
- 123123
- 987654321
- qwertyuiop
- mynoob
- 123321
- 666666
- 18atcskd2w
- 7777777
- 1q2w3e4r
- 654321
- 555555
- 3rjs1la7qe
- 1q2w3e4r5t
- 123qwe
- zxcvbnm
- 1q2w3e
If your current passwords resemble any of the above, I suggest you start changing them. A good password comprises a combination of small and big capital letters, numbers and symbols. An example such as FbScAM999*!
I found that HongKiat.com had provided an easy and step by step guides on how to increase your Facebook security by toggling some settings. Find out more here.
CHECK YOU ACCOUNT REGULARLY
A good practice is to check your credit cards statement more often, to verify for any ambiguous transactions. Should you see identified any, report it to the credit card company.