Be Protected from Facebook Scams: Copy Account

I have been wanting to write about this, but I did not get the opportunity. This method of Facebook Scamming is really new. I am a semi-professional on Facebook scam detection, but till now I have only witnessed one case like this.

Let me discuss in details. In Facebook, you can create as many account as you want from a same IP address. All you need is a different email ID. It is also possible to download any image from Facebook by right clicking and choosing "Save Image As". You must have guessed how the scamming works. I am against all sorts of Hacking, but I must say the person who discovered this must be a genius. The scamming works in a very simple, yet cunning way. Hacker will download your Profile Picture into his system. Then the hacker will create an anonymous email ID from any free Email server. Then, he will create a Facebook account with your name, and set your profile picture as the profile picture of the fake account.

He can do a lot of things with the Facebook account. For instance, he can message all your friends "I am broken, send some money to my credit card. The number is *********". Or, he can also send Keyloggers or other Viruses to them. In the Copy Account case I experienced, the Hacker (In this case, one of my friends) sent me some really emotional messages disguised as another "very special friend" of mine. Although it was just a prank, I thought I should mention it. A copy account may seem funny at first, but it can become lots of trouble and complications in the end.

Now, the main problem is, creating a copy account is not a crime unless the hacker shares viruses, spam links etc from it. Even if you report the account to Facebook, it may not be taken down. The things you can do are written below.

• Share this post, and write something like "I have only 1 Facebook account. Do not accept friend request from any other account with my name." considering you have only one Facebook account.
• If you see that a known person is chatting with you in a awkward way, see the chat history and wall of that person. If you don't remember chatting with the person about the stuff you found in the chat history, and if you do not remember the persons wall, block both (Fake and Real) person Fast. Then after a day, unblock the real person, and tell him what happened.
• If you see that your account has been copied, the thing you could do is change your profile picture and   send a message to your friends with a link to this article. Explain to your friend what you suspect is going on, and tell them not to share any confidential information with you in Facebook.

You might consider reading the following two articles of this Series:

Be Protected from Facebook Scams: Keyloggers

Be Protected from Facebook Scams: Brute Force Attacks