I’m specifically referring to things like the ads for cheap sunglasses that I’ve been seeing for what seems like over a decade now and the more recent “look who died in an accident” video links that three of my elderly aunts have had on their accounts in the last year. Who is “hacking” these accounts and what are they gaining from it?
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>look who died in an accident” video links that three of my elderly aunts have had on their accounts in the last year.
To be honest, this sounds more like some kind of spam message like “post this link on Facebook to rise awareness, or more people will die the same way” or anything similar and people post it, instead of actually hacking.
What they get, probably clicks, because if someone posted it you know, it’s more likely you will click the link. They put some adds there and the more people visit the site the more money they will make. So just click bait, at least in some cases.
Of course accounts also get hacked, for example accounts that sell things, may now be a scam, but because of a long history and a lot of happy customers in the past people may be more willing to spend money without checking all the details and it doesn’t get instantly obvious that it’s a scam side.
Or literally anything else, the reasons why accounts could get hacked are nearly endless.
Edit: and how they get hacked, most simple probably fishing attacks. They get a link where they have to log in and update something in their account, or verify something, enter the log in data and congratulations you are hacked.
If its more personal, say someone highjacks an account after a break up, they may even know the log in data to begin with.
Or aunt Rosie born 1942 which is perfectly visible for all on her profile uses Rosie42 as her password…
Very few to zero people get “hacked”.
They click on stupid shit, fall for phishing tactics, and are generally very poor at handling account security.
They then get angry if you try to help or explain this to them, because that means they have to take responsibility for their actions that led to the natural consequence.
The “look who died” links aren’t hacks, just misleading. Typically they’re links that require you to share the story before it will show you the story, but there is no story. Not really sure why people do that. Maybe trying to scrounge up some as revenue? Could be doing some backdoor search engine optimization by generating more traffic, but really they’re no different from chain e-mails. People either don’t realize they’ve shared them or don’t understand the internet at all, and blame hacks.
Actual hacked accounts almost always come from social engineering attacks. There’s a very common script they follow saying they’re trying to win a contest and need you to follow specific steps to “vote” for them. The steps have you forwarding a password reset link or something along those lines. Once they get into your account, they start posting scam links, often fake dog selling schemes or investment schemes, and DMing your friends to get more accounts and widen their reach.
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The majority of people that get “hacked” on Facebook are not actually getting hacked. They are giving away their password via phishing sites or some other tactic used by scammers.
Most that I see think they’re hacked but actually aren’t. It’s just another user setting up a clone account to dupe the clones person’s friends. It’s so dumb. I got one recently from someone purporting to be my mother-in-law. Strung them along for almost a week, then reported them.
Usually they replied to a phising email or left their Facebook logged in on a publicly accessible device. Most of these fake adds are for the purposes of collecting personal information which can be sold on to scammers.
Getting phished is one thing, but when people say “hacked” on Facebook, it’s often just a fake new account that copied the victim’s profile pic. Their social connections suddenly get a new friend request from their existing Facebook friend, and if they accept, they might have their “friend” try to get money out of them.
That’s not what hacking is. That’s just spam ads. Hacking is when someone actual gains access to the account. People say or think accounts are “hacked” all the time but that that doesn’t make it true. Most people are very computer illiterate. An account is only hacked if someone has actual control over the account because they’ve gotten the account username and password. Your elderly aunts don’t know what hacking is, which is not a dig and them and it’s not a surprise – it’s just true that elderly people have no idea how computers or the internet work. They think that anything happening that they didn’t want to happen is “hacking”, but being shown manipulative ads is *not* being hacked.
Facebook? What are you, 100 yo?
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