Question For Facebook Experts

[ChiangMaiThai]

I'm hoping someone out there can shed some light on this.

I received a private message from one of my friends that they obviously didn't send. So we both assumed that someone simply got her password and sent me the message. However, two things make this rather odd.

1. Whenever I receive a private message, I ALWAYS receive an email telling me that I have a new facebook private message. In this case, the email never arrived.

2. In my friend's account when she logged in there was no trace of the sent message. The message was only visible in my account. Every other time she has sent me a message, it shows in her account, but not this time.

Based on this and your knowledge of facebook, do you have any opinion of what may have happened?

Does the fact that I received this message mean that someone 100% someone else hacked my friend's account or is it possible that the message was sent from some third party program?

[MikeWill]

Most likely the message was sent from some third party program.

[jdinasia]

FB has notoriously bad security and is prone to attack.

[ChiangMaiThai]

Thanks for these responses.

How sure do you think I can be that the message was sent from a third party program and that the account itself wasn't compromised?

The fact that there was no sent message in the account of the 'sender' and the fact that no email notification was triggered makes me think that the account wasn't actually hacked, but this person found some program that allows you to use a facebook account to send a message without actually having the password for that account.

I just had another friend send me a test message and as with every other message I have ever received (apart from the one in question), it triggered an email notification and it also shows in his account.

It would bring me some peace of mind if I could find this program and confirm that the account was not actually hacked once and for all. Any idea where to begin looking? I am not having much luck with Google, but maybe I am searching for the wrong thing.

Thank you much!

[mario299]

Most likely the message was sent from some third party program.

I have had it happen a few times, and recently several times, especially after the recent Osama thing. I get Facebook messages from "friends" telling me this and that but I NEVER use the link provided. If you couldn't find info on Google about this, then you didn't try hard enough, or simply go directly to Facebook security for answers.

Good luck.

mario299 :jap:

[Chivas]

Not condoning it but this Facebook is just a total joke ?

People informing "friends" what they have had for breakfast etc !!

Totally laughable but people (including me) are effectively glued to it but nobody can tell you why !

[ChiangMaiThai]

Most likely the message was sent from some third party program.

I have had it happen a few times, and recently several times, especially after the recent Osama thing. I get Facebook messages from "friends" telling me this and that but I NEVER use the link provided. If you couldn't find info on Google about this, then you didn't try hard enough, or simply go directly to Facebook security for answers.

Good luck.

mario299 :jap:

I guess the real question is, when these private messages are sent from a friend's account who did not themselves send the message, does it mean that the facebook account has been compromised (meaning all contents of the account were seen by a third party) or does it simply mean that there is some kind of third party software out there that can send a message from a given account even without knowing the password for that account?

[MunterHunter]

Tell her to change her password anyway, just to be safe... Also try to report this incident to Facebook themselves, hopefully they can investigate and stop this happening in the future (unlikely, but worth a try)

[ChiangMaiThai]

Tell her to change her password anyway, just to be safe... Also try to report this incident to Facebook themselves, hopefully they can investigate and stop this happening in the future (unlikely, but worth a try)

Thanks. Password is changed. Now I am just concerned if the hacker accessed all the info in the account including many other private messages.

I am pretty much over facebook as a communication tool. There has got to be more secure ways!

[Chivas]

As an older "user" of Facebook who joined on advice of a friend, to find friends and nothing else, what do people actually get out of Facebook ??

My own eldest kids announce they are going to the Gym for example, and I have to think so fuc_king what !!

To possibly find old Girlfriends/Boyfriends its excellent but the end product is Nill !! Is it me or am I getting too old at 51 ??

[GarryP]

Definitely, too old. You should try the social network website targeted specifically at our age group, faceliftbook.com.

[Chivas]

Definitely, too old. You should try the social network website targeted specifically at our age group, faceliftbook.com.

Yep have joined GP but am advised old buggers with maximum experience are unrequired.......

[featography]

FB has notoriously bad security and is prone to attack.

Agreed. FB doesnt broadcast this, but you and your friend need to change your site address, from http:// to https"//, which is the secured status so 3rd parties cant mess with your account.

How it is done;

upper right corner, click on ACCOUNT

then click on ACCOUNT SETTINGS,

when that page appears, click on ACCOUNT SECURITY

you will get a drop down menu. Check the box marked, "Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible"

It is also advised to check the box under that

Login NotificationsWhen an unrecognized computer or device tries to access my account: Send me an email

[featography]

. FB doesnt broadcast this, but you and your friend need to change your site address, from http:// to https"//, which is the secured status so 3rd parties cant mess with your account.

How it is done;

upper right corner, click on ACCOUNT

then click on ACCOUNT SETTINGS,

when that page appears, click on ACCOUNT SECURITY

you will get a drop down menu. Check the box marked, "Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible"

It is also advised to check the box under that

Login Notifications When an unrecognized computer or device tries to access my account: Send me an email

[featography]

Definitely, too old. You should try the social network website targeted specifically at our age group, faceliftbook.com.

Yep have joined GP but am advised old buggers with maximum experience are unrequired.......

[jayceenik]

As an older "user" of Facebook who joined on advice of a friend, to find friends and nothing else, what do people actually get out of Facebook ??

My own eldest kids announce they are going to the Gym for example, and I have to think so fuc_king what !!

To possibly find old Girlfriends/Boyfriends its excellent but the end product is Nill !! Is it me or am I getting too old at 51 ??

A lot of young and old people have no understanding of what facebook is and can bring to the user.

It can be a fantastic tool for exchanging information about all subjects for example. For me it's mainly about my interest in US politics.

If people like Obama have a facebook page it's not to tell trivial stuff.

[Nip]

Facebook I believe is one of the first places the police look in criminal cases. The first case I noticed was this young woman in Florida allegedly murdered her daughter and claimed she was with a boyfriend or at home at the time however the police checked on Facebook and found that she had uploaded photos of herself at a disco at the same time she was meant to be at home. Just think of all the information Facebook provides law enforcement agencies. They know who you are . Who your friends are. Where you live. Where you go socially. Who you work with. Where you go on holidays. Who you go with. And you directly or indirectly provide them with thousands of photos as well. Facebook is Big Brother. Just think of how easy it is for friends from the past to find you. Well if they can so can if of course it is necessary the police or worse. I never use it! Too time consuming.

[phuket Mike]

First of all as a heavy Facebook user I would like to say that Facebook is an excellent tool for business, especially for promoting web sites and generating traffic.

I have some experience with so called Facebook viruses and click-jacking. I would say that your friends account has not been hacked, they have probably installed a rogue application that has the right to send messages, when you install a FB application Facebook always asks your permission to allow the app to access certain features of your account. Your friends needs to go through their installed FB Applications and remove any they don't recognize or use.

Enabling secure sockets (https) will not stop this type of attack, all login requests in FB are transmitted using https by default, so the only information someone can get from sniffing the network is what you are posting, also enabling https for all information will have a performance hit and stop certain features from working.

I would recommend the use of a good anti-virus product, one that has a link-scanning feature, most of the free versions don't, I use AVG Internet Security and it immediately highlights these attacks.

The reason the message does not appear in your friends out box also confirms the message was sent by an application and not from a hacked account.

[BB1950]

First of all as a heavy Facebook user I would like to say that Facebook is an excellent tool for business, especially for promoting web sites and generating traffic.

From my point of view, as a private individual, another reason to stay away from Facebook. To date, no one has given me a valid reason to join Facebook. It is a terrible risk to security and privacy. Facebook makes money by selling private information.

[phuket Mike]

First of all as a heavy Facebook user I would like to say that Facebook is an excellent tool for business, especially for promoting web sites and generating traffic.

From my point of view, as a private individual, another reason to stay away from Facebook. To date, no one has given me a valid reason to join Facebook. It is a terrible risk to security and privacy. Facebook makes money by selling private information.

Facebook make their money from targeted advertising based on information in a users profile, advertisers or applications do not have access to that information unless the user gives them permission to do so. Profile information can be restricted (and should be) to friends only, people who randomly accept friend requests from strangers should be very careful about the information they post.

To me if information is private I do not put it on the internet.

I agree Facebook is not for everyone, the only real way to find out if it useful to you is to try it.

[bangkockney]

The entire Internet works on this premise. You use services in exchange for personal info.

First of all as a heavy Facebook user I would like to say that Facebook is an excellent tool for business, especially for promoting web sites and generating traffic.

From my point of view, as a private individual, another reason to stay away from Facebook. To date, no one has given me a valid reason to join Facebook. It is a terrible risk to security and privacy. Facebook makes money by selling private information.

[nikster]

To the OP:

That's the result of your friend allowing some application to post on her behalf.

There's all sorts of social engineering tricks to accomplish that - example some app promises to show you something you want to see, whatever it is, let's say they promise to show you who was looking at your profile. You click on the link, get on a next page where they ask you for permission to access your account. You grant this permission, and now this app can do whatever it wants (not really, within limits). Like post a message on your wall on her behalf.

I think there's application settings somewhere in the mess that is Facebook preferences. Go in that, and remove / turn off all access for all applications that were granted access.

I guess the most notorious used to be all these farmville kind of games that constantly post updates in your status. I haven't seen these for a while so either people are not playing these games anymore or the status spam was finally blocked by facebook - I don't know which.

[wpcoe]

I hope this doesn't violate any trademark rights (if so, mods please delete...), but this cartoon the other day shows the generation gap pretty accurately, IMHO: