A good-intentioned hacker hit Facebook pretty hard November 10, taking over some of its groups to show just how easy it is- and how vulnerable your online information is.
The message they left? “Think about the safety in your social media life to the same extent you do in your real life.”
Facebook has thousands of groups, which are different from personal accounts. Groups are joined by members with like interests; anything from TV shows, careers, school alumni to charitable organizations. The exact number of groups hacked in unknown, but the total is believed to be in the hundreds.
Facebook users checking their group’s updates were met with this message:
“Hello, we hereby announce that we have officially hijacked your Facebook group. This means we control a certain part of the information about you on Facebook. If we wanted we could make you appear in a bad way which could damage your image severely.
“For example we could rename your group and call it something very inappropriate and nasty, like ‘I support pedophile’s rights.’ But have no fear — we won’t. We just renamed it Control Your Info. Because this is really all we want:
“Think about the safety in your social media life to the same extent you do in your real life.
“Watch the video clip for more information or check out www.controlyour.info for more tips soon!
“We promise to restore your group name and leave the group by the end of next week. Don’t worry — we won’t mess anything up.”
A Facebook representative released a statement saying, “There has been no hacking and there is no confidential information at risk. We are still investigating this situation, but an extremely small number of groups have been affected.”
I don’t know how taking over the administration of someone’s site isn’t hacking, but it’s true that groups do not hold any personal information- you opt in and you opt out. All of your personal information is contained in your profile, but if someone can easily take over Facebook groups, it wouldn’t be surprising if some ill intentioned hacker could break into your personal profile.
Control Your Info is right, while their methods may have clouded their message, that your social and online information should be protected just as heavily as your real life information. You shred your bank statements, junk mail and lock up your documents- what information do you leave saved into your computer and online? Bank passwords? Word docs full of you access codes and usernames for easy reference?
Think twice what you store on your computer or someone else may end up controlling your info.
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