How can we defend ourselves against the new social sites bot hackers?
Asked by
kelly (
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March 4th, 2010
In the March 4, USA Today newspaper is feature story on computer is sending you a Facebook or Twitter “friend” message that has an embedded bot program that then records all your key strokes. upon hacking your list of “friends” they then start the infection of ever more computers. They are especially targeting social network access from company computers and once in with internal company password access data, finance, patents etc. How do we private home users diminish this bot threat? How to do so, when the message we get is in fact from a “friend” who’s screen name, avatar, password have previously been stolen and appear to be legitimate.
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I’m glad I have Norton 360 virus protection then. It has keystroke protection so hackers can’t tell what numbers or letters I’m entering when I’m typing. How to combat the problem other than virus protection programs? I really don’t know.
For starters, Don’t open suspicious messages.
If you use a Mac I suggest using Little Snitch.
It looks like this when a application tries to make a outbound network connection. I’m sure there is something similar for Windows.
You can download something called a key scrambler that confuses keyloggers. I recently had such a hacker and he actually talked to me after I tracked him down. I already wrote about the exchange here
The article you refer to discusses one of the largest types of security threats: the phishing scheme. It’s not so much that hackers are using Facebook directly to get into your computer – they are trying to trick you into going to their own site, where malicious code will be installed on your computer without your knowledge. Or, if you are asked for login info, they will capture it and use it to break into your real account.
Hackers can hone their tricks by gathering information about you or your friends from publicly available profiles, then use it to convince you that their scheme is a legitimate message from a friend.
The best way to avoid having your computer compromised, as @MrGeneVan said, is to never open attachments or click on links sent to you in emails. Instead, contact the sender directly to verify that it came from them, or go to the Website referenced by way of your own verifiable bookmarked URL.
Second, if your running Windows, you could install Adaware and Spybot, both free, in addition to any anti-virus software you should be running.
Thirdly, you could switch to a Mac, for which there are currently no known viruses or spyware in the wild (though you could still be tricked into installing harmful software or giving away your password.)
That probably explains why I get goofy friend requests on occasion.
@kevbo No man, goofy people just wanna be your friends!
Get a spatula and beat some sense into them!
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