One of the most effective methods that hackers use to identify potential prey, is the copy-and-paste social engineering trick. Facebook is a goldmine for just that. The more gullible someone is by nature, the easier and the more they'll fall for it. And that's the target market scammers love.
Take a look at the below post from one Wendy Botes that I came across on Facebook this afternoon. Will use it as example of how dangerous it actually is. Below it, a very important message you need to get into the heads of your friends.
"To those who might be tempted to clone my account or represent themselves as me…
Special thanks to Tim and Larry for this legal advice… and to Tim Barker for posting this information:
Due to the fact everyone is slowly getting hi-jacked yeah hi-jacked not hacked anymore there flat out hi-jacking our accounts, even more now.
Just in case Notice: An attorney advised us to post this. The violation of privacy can be punished by law. NOTE: Facebook Meta is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you do not publish a statement at least once, it will be technically understood that you are allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.
I HEREBY STATE THAT I DO NOT GIVE MY PERMISSION TO USE ANY OF MY PERSONAL DATA OR PHOTOS. If you are thinking of getting off FB because of the volume of sales ads and trash stuff. So hold your finger anywhere in this post and click ′copy’. Go to your page where it says ‘What's on your mind?’ Tap your finger anywhere in the blank field. Click paste. This upgrades the system.
Good bye annoying ads
"
Now listen up, kids. Do NOT copy and paste posts like the above.
Hackers make posts like these on fake accounts, and then get it to go viral using a number of methods. They encourage gullible people to copy and paste instead of share, so that when FB disable their fake accounts, the scam post that was copied a million times already lives on.
If you should share - instead of copy and paste - such posts, you'll notice just 2 days later an 'attachment not available' error where the post was on your timeline. That's because FB disabled the account of the scum where you shared from. But when you copied, the text lives on...
That is when the hacker runs a bot, after logging in with yet another fake account. His bot searches for everyone that copied his post, by using certain unique keyword phrases in that post.
The bot then scrapes every piece of data on your account, and you'll be stunned if I should show you what a wealth of information your profile and timeline has about you. Even the most frequent colors you use, the type of post you share most, your spelling proficiency in your native language, what type of photos and memes you share, the groups you belong to, the pages you liked, it all paints a very accurate picture of you.
Hackers use psychology big time. In fact, a password-cracking script can be downloaded free of charge that allows a hacker to determine what your Facebook password is, simply by using a number of metrics found in your posts. What is the letters you use most? In what following order?
The length of your words, it may indicate the length of your passwords, and also if it's words that are in a dictionary. And much more. Only by using a random password generated by a password manager can you circumvent that, but it does not make you immune from getting hacked.
Studies show that people copying and pasting fearmongering posts are significantly more gullible than those that don't, and that their passwords are generally easier to crack, and that their understanding of technology is more limited, making it easier to hack them. And, the more religious you are, the easier prey you become. I cannot recall how many religiots I've seen complaining that their FB accounts were hacked.
The worse your spelling is, the better. Poor spelling indicates poor thought processes, and an inability to solve problems. After all, you think in your mother language, and if you can't even spell some basic words, what puke in a tumble dryer is going on in your head then?
That is why hackers target South Africans the third most in the world, because the people there aren't exactly intelligent. (Me being diplomatic.) But as middle income country they have money, or credit scores good enough to take out loans on (that the victim then may have to pay back), or their identities can be stolen for fake marriages as part of human trafficking, or their devices can be hacked to become part of botnets, and much more.
What you deem worthless, is worth gold to a hacker. The more a hacker knows about you, the more at risk you are, even five years down the lane. (But you love using TikTok, and the Chinese government loves you for that. Story for another day.)
The 'facts' in such viral posts are a mixture of fact and fiction, which is why gullible people tend to believe it. Much of it is pure outright lies, you only need to stop a second and question it critically. But only atheists do that, which makes us very unpopular among anyone trying to manipulate us. Atheists, and there are studies about it, are the least likely to fall for scams like pyramid schemes.
The subconscious mind cannot distinguish between fact and fiction, and accepts everything entering it as true. That's why the - albeit slow - critical conscious mind is so important, it acts as a gate guard sifting through raw data reaching it. When you don't question what you read or see or hear, it goes through to the superfast subconscious mind whether it was true or not. And when in distress or during emotional upheaval, the brain falls back on what is stored in the subconscious.
Anger a religious or far-right or far-left person, and see the epic reasoning they come up with. Their 'logic' is breathtakingly bad. Hackers know it, and we exploit it.
That's why almost all fake news websites and conspiracy theories are aimed squarely are religious and/or right-wingers, many studies have shown that they fall the easiest for fake news. So they click links, that lead to advertisements that make money for someone laughing at the gullible idiots, or to sites containing malware.
Regarding the scam post I'm using as example:
Cloning an account is identity theft, the number 1 crime in the world according to Interpol. The post is correct, factual, when it says that accounts are 'hi-jacked', but what the post doesn't say is that hackers love cloning the accounts of people copying scam posts! Such pasting people generally share a lot of information online, which is what a scammer needs to impersonate you.
No, one does not have to put any such notification on your profile as the scam post claims. In fact, doing so just looks retarded, and tells everyone seeing it that you are gullible and ripe for the picking. When you signed up for Facebook you agreed to their terms of service. The latter is a legal contract, and one cannot change the terms in there by afterwards posting a post like the one I used as example.
One must be slow or just plain ignorant to think you can go back on a legally binding agreement by posting a copied and pasted post from elsewhere. "Hey, dear bank, I hereby revoke my loan repayments with you, okay. Because I'm posting this on my timeline you cannot sue me for breaking our agreement."
The 'attorney' mentioned definitely does not exist; the hacker outright lied to lend authority to his scam post. Scammers use terms like 'legal' and others all the time, it makes a post sound authoritative. Thus, gullible people fall over their feet for it, especially the more religious a person is.
Yes, ironically, you can copy and paste this post of mine, or share it, since it puts things in perspective. It shows black hat hackers that you are aware of their social engineering trick.
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