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Don't fall victim to social networking hackers

By Adam Ghassemi KATU News - PORTLAND, Ore. –  Thousands of people use Facebook to connect with friends and family. But sometimes the people you think you're talking to may not be who they say they are.

That's what happened to KATU reporter Adam Ghassemi, who was up late one night on Facebook when an old friend and former teacher named DeAnne Gammon sent him an instant message saying hello.

The casual chat quickly turned into panic, however, when Gammon told him she was "freaked out." When Ghassemi asked her how her daughter's recent surgery went, she replied that they went to London to recover and got mugged at gunpoint. She continued that they were stranded with no cash or cell phone. Though they had plane tickets home, they had no money for the hotel, she wrote. That's when she directed Ghassemi to Western Union as a way to send some cash.

Suspicious of the story, Ghassemi asked what subject she taught. "DeAnne" was unable to answer and then accused him of taking advantage of her situation before calling him a "jerk."

Turns out it was a hacker painting a horrible picture of his real friend, who was really asleep in Memphis, Tenn. - more than 4,000 miles from London.

Not everyone has caught on to the scam, however. Gammon said one friend actually wired $500 to a London address after getting the same story during a Facebook chat.

That money is gone, but the threat is not - as hackers attack social networking accounts to prey on innocent people.

"They know where I went to college, what trips I've taken recently," she said. "You know, they know all kinds of things about me."

But how do these scam artists get into your account to pose as you in the first place?
Cybercrime expert Rachel James with the Beaverton-based ID Experts says many times we bring it on ourselves.

"About 75 percent of people will accept other people as friends without knowing anything or questioning anything about that," she said.

Accepting friend requests from people you don't know is only the first mistake. Once someone can see your full profile they could use what you post to guess their way into your account without you ever knowing.

"It just makes me feel like I've been invaded," said Gammon. "I feel like I've had my house broken into."

The surprising thing is your computer isn't the only way you could be opening up your Facebook account to hackers. Accepting application requests can expose your Facebook account to dangerous mal-ware, which is code that lets hackers have access to your online social identity without you ever knowing.

But the threat isn't just on your computer. Many people access social networking sites, like Facebook, on their mobile phones. And doing that could give dangerous mal-ware access to your account.

"We don't run the same kind of anti-virus on our mobile phones as we do on our home computers," James said. "It doesn't matter where you pick up that piece of mal-ware, if it's your mobile phone or your computer, that can absolutely impact your social networking sites."
Another mistake is using the same password on Facebook as you do on other sites - just like Ghassemi's friend, Deanne, did.

"It's also the same password as my bank account, and my credit cards and my Paypal account, but I've changed all that," she said.

Another problem is using the same e-mail address for personal and social networking use. James recommends that you create an e-mail account that is only used for social networking.

"Never e-mail your friends or family from that e-mail address," she said.
That way if someone is posing as you, you can quickly warn your friends or family.
The biggest warning sign for your friends and relatives is if they receive a request for them to wire money.

"Western Union is one of the only ways that you can send money, and it's gone, never to be seen again," James said.

Facebook now has a new, tougher security page to deal with this problem, which the FBI says seems to be growing at an overwhelming rate. 

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