You Weren t Hacked, You Were Spoofed

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1 You Weren t Hacked, You Were Spoofed How to Deal with a Facebook Spoofer 2016 Cyndi Ingle, cyndihow@gmail.com Hacked: someone has used a computer to gain unauthorized access to your computer. Spoofed: someone has set up a fake profile pretending to be you in order to gain access to your friends and their personal information shared on Facebook. The difference is important to understand. If someone is pretending to be you by using a spoofed profile they don t have access to any information that you don t already have available to the public. They are hoping that your friends will accept the new spoofed friend request so that they will have access to whatever information your friends have made available to the public, but more important what they made available to Facebook friends only. It isn t you that is at risk, it is your friends who accept the spoofed friend request. If you get a friend request and you know it is a spoofer, please report it ASAP. The quicker it is reported, the safer people will be. How to Report the Spoofer If you receive a Facebook friend request from someone that you thought was already your friend, or should have been your friend, follow these directions. At the very least follow #1 and #4. 1. Confirm your friendship a. Check to see if you are already friends with this person, on another profile. Use the search box on the page, type in your friend s name and see if you find a duplicate profile. 2. Report it to your friend a. Privately message the legitimate friend to tell them about the new spoofed profile. b. If you are on a computer, you can copy and paste the URL (address) for the spoofed profile into that private message so that your real friend can see what you are seeing. i. To do this, put your cursor on the address bar and the URL will automatically be highlighted. Then use Ctrl+C to copy ( +C on a Mac). ii. Go to a private message and put your cursor in the text box and use Ctrl+V to paste ( +V on a Mac). 3. Report it to other people on Facebook a. Post a message on the wall of your legitimate friend that warns their friends not to accept the new friend request. b. If you are on a computer, you can copy and paste the URL (address) for the spoofed profile into that post so that your real friend s friends can see what you are seeing. i. To do this, put your cursor on the address bar and the URL will automatically be highlighted. Then use Ctrl+C to copy ( +C on a Mac). ii. Put your cursor in the text box and use Ctrl+V to paste ( +V on a Mac). 4. Report it to Facebook (see screenshots below) a. Go to the wall of the spoofed profile.

2 b. If you are on the computer, look at the top right corner for a button with 3 dots, next to the Message button. c. If you are on a phone FB app, look for the 3 dots and More next to the Message button. d. Choose Report e. Report this profile f. They re pretending to be me or someone I know g. Someone I know h. Submit to Facebook for Review i. Enter the name of the legitimate friend in the box j. Submit How to Protect Your Privacy on Facebook Locking down your privacy ensures that your friends list doesn t get used by potential spoofers. By default your friends list is open to everyone. From a Computer 1. For general privacy settings: a. On the upper right corner there is a lock and a drop-down arrow. b. The lock takes you to a a quick Privacy Shortcuts menu. But I prefer to look at all the privacy settings under the drop-down arrow tab. The address for that page is: c. Review each of the settings there to be sure you are comfortable with each of them. 2. To protect your friends list, login to from a web browser on your computer or mobile device (not the FB app on your tablet or phone): a. Go to your own Facebook wall click on your name and profile pic at the top right of your screen to get to your own wall. b. Click the Friends tab c. At the top right corner of the list of your friends there is a pencil icon. Click that and then Edit privacy d. Under Who can see your friend list? change the setting from Public to Friends. This option will mean that future spoofers can t fake your profile and invite your friends into their fake account.

3 From a Phone or Tablet App It appears that you can t do edit the privacy on your Friends list in this way from within an app. So, go to Facebook.com on your mobile device s browser to view the web site version of Facebook. Then follow the directions given above for doing this from a computer. Example of faked profile with screenshots on how to report it to Facebook

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