Don’t Be Fooled by ‘friends’

– social network hackers are in for the kill. Social network hacking and security breaches are becoming more and more prominent these days. Hackers set up fake profiles and attempt to gather personal and confidential information as your ‘friend’, using malicious code and malware to infiltrate systems. Hackers rely on the trust and ignorance of other social network users to gain access to private information from their computers.

Gaining access to your profile

Once a hacker has entered into your social network circle, it is possible for him to post malicious content onto your page. Identity theft has been a common occurrence as of late as hackers use your personal information to virtually pose as you and create mischief all over the web.

There are some basic precautions one should take when starting a new profile on a social network. It’s important to be aware of who you invite and allow into your network circle. If something looks suspicious, rather don’t accept the invitation. Often hackers create fake profiles and you will be able to notice that they are fakery by seeing that they generally have very little personal information on their pages and have invited a lot of people who do not know them personally.

How they do it

Once a hacker has come into your network he can post content on your profile that is loaded with infectious malware and spyware. Users need to be very careful of what they click on as some serious viruses can be channeled through online content. You should never ever give any of your passwords to anyone else, regardless of their reasons. Hackers can come up with some pretty sneaky ways of acquiring your details. One of them is via software that they create, which is why you have to be extremely careful about what you download and view online.

Avoiding malware and spyware

The worst thing about a lot of malware is that is spreads to everybody else on your friends list. If you are an online consumer it is imperative that you check every site you buy from for relative security measures. Stay away from less well known sites. If you own a business, a hacker could potentially kill your reputation and business through identity theft or malware infiltration. Once a hacker has access to your passwords, he can easily access your bank details as well.

At the end of the day, the best way to stay safe is to avoid anything suspicious. Also, make sure your anti-virus software is regularly updated. Install an anti-malware and spyware program like Spybot as well to be safe. Spybot will notify you whenever something tries to download itself onto your computer without your knowledge. Be aware and be safe.

The above article was originally published at:http://www.mobile-computing-news.co.uk/industry-news/7883/don%E2%80%99t-be-fooled-by-%E2%80%98friends%E2%80%99-%E2%80%93-social-network-hackers-are-in-for-the-kill.html