Facebook Steps Up Defense Against ID Theft and Hacked Accounts

July 22, 2009 – 5:40 pm

Social media sites have become the hunting grounds for identity thieves and Facebook, with over 250 million users, is the largest target for most cyber criminals. As most users know Facebook has recently been hit with constant phishing attempts and worms designed to steal user’s passwords. They range from official looking pages, emails supposedly from Facebook, or even fake quizzes and games made to look like their real counterpart. But unlike most other social media sites, Facebook isn’t taking this lying down any more.

To stop hacked accounts from being reactivated while still under the control of hackers, Facebook has implemented a thorough verification process that users must go through before gaining access to their previously hacked accounts. In addition Facebook has started an attempt to educate their users by building a security page that has tips and information on how to safely access Facebook on the internet.

Facebook’s integrity team member Jake Brill had this to say about the measures:

This new change will help us not only fight spam, but also spread the word about security on Facebook. In the coming months, we’ll be rolling out similar processes to address the different threats people may face.

Hopefully this will start a new trend where social media sites will start taking precautions to protect their members. The amount of information left unsecured to those willing to hack and steal it is astounding and without measure to stop identity thieves instituted by the companies themselves, fairly soon no active user will be safe.

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