I can’t believe it!  After posting two carefully-researched articles on the personal nature of Social media scams, I was hacked last night!  (See the first two posts listed below.)

Normally, I wouldn’t devote three consecutive posts to the same topic, but I thought you would want to know what I did so you’ll know what to do.

When I went on Facebook, I looked at my profile and found a picture of a crib:

I clicked on  help and reported it to Facebook, but with millions of users, I really didn’t expect help from them.  Normally, when I’m solving a problem, searching the internet will often help (or I might talk to my sons or a techie friend). So, I tried Google search and didn’t find anything.  Since I’m travelling right now, I decided to work it out myself.

• I went through the steps of securing my account and changing my password (but I’m not sure that was necessary.)
• Clicking on the crib generated an empty photo album. Not good! This could spread malware or something.  I deleted the album. Since the photo did not link to a site selling baby things, that is, an ad, I assume this was malware.
• The crib photo showed up in my list of “Photos of Sus,” but when I did a slideshow the photo did not come up, so I couldn’t simply delete the photo. I concluded something tagged the photo with my name, but they hid where the link was coming from.
• I found the crib photo in my “Nana’s Photos” album. Again, I could not access the photo and delete it.  I deleted the entire album and all the nice comments from our friends.
• I created a new album without “Nana” or “Grandma” in the title of it.

My best guess (and I could be wrong) is that the malware searched for “Nana’s Photos;” this malware may search for “Grandma’s Photos” or “Grandpa’s Brag Book” or similar. It then tagged me to the crib photo.  I don’t know how it attached to the album.

What do you think?  Was this just coming in through a tag on a photo? Or did the photo come in through my account in order to put it in an album?  Should I do more to secure my Facebook account?

Related articles

• Scams on Facebook Are Personal (this site)
• Nine Social Safety Tips (this site)
• The top 5 Social media scams (wxyz.com)
• Don’t Get Scammed On Social Media! (lorirtaylor.com)