Throughout the years in business, in many occasions, victims had been coming to us to consult for resolving their problem of getting back their money from those online scams of various nature and Modus Operandi be it Romance scam, Charities scam, Investment Scam and various others. The most common answer that will be coming from us after hearing their stories and after several attempts made to identify those culprits will be “We have exhausted all avenues to check and identify who they are but unfortunately, there’s no lead to this case”.
It is frustrating to learn that it is nearly impossible to go after these online scammers and we have noticed that “facebook’ has been used as one of the major platform used by those scammers to source for their victims. Thus, It is timely for the people to understand the emerging threat of cyber risk and be “cyber streetwise” to protect themselves from the risk involved when having an account in “Facebook”.
Protecting your Facebook profile from scammers and spammers requires serious ammo. The first fortifications are of course the security firewalls and countermeasures employed by Facebook itself. But just like any other war, the foot soldier is the most important piece around which the battle can turn. The foot soldier is you and what you do to protect your account. Facebook gives you some privacy controls to help you thwart spammer snoops.
Here’s the checklist on how to configure your profile to protect yourself from scammers ““
1. Stop Facebook Impostors – Configure the Privacy Settings
This is the first port of call. After you log-in, on the top right corner of the blue bar you will see the Settings link. Hover over it to get the dropdown and the Privacy Settings.
The Privacy page is all about allowing or disallowing others from looking at all the information on your Facebook page. Information can be broadcasted from your profile, a Facebook search result with your name, what gets written on Wall Posts, news feeds of your recent activities, and from the applications you authorize to pull information from your page.
The great thing about Facebook is that it allows us to configure each small part of our profile (see screenshot above). This is what we should be aware of.
2. Be aware of your friends
- Social sites make it very easy to add friends with a click. Soon enough we have an unmanageable bunch. Organizing friends into groups or Friend Lists is one way. Profile views can be set for Everyone, Only Friends, Friends of Friends or customized for specific Friend Lists. You can also exclude certain friends/Friend Lists.
- On the Privacy page, click on Profile. Control who gets to see each bit of information by clicking the dropdown and selecting one. You can also click Customize to further fine tune the selections. Never set it to Everyone – that’s like opening the front door. Also, remember that your friends might have other friends who are absolute strangers to you.
- One absolute area that you should keep private is the Contact Information. You can set it to No one.
- Save all changes.
3. Be invisible ““ remove yourself from searches
Given Facebook’s high search listing, anybody (say, scammers) searching for you or some area of related interest would find it easy. When you sign up, the default setting allows everyone to search for you. Later, one way to discourage that is by removing yourself from public search listing and also controlling your visibility from within Facebook.
- From the Privacy page, click on Search to access the settings for search. Under the heading Public Search Listing, deselect the option to create a public search listing of your profile.
- To cloak yourself further, you can control your search visibility from within Facebook by selecting Only Friends for Search Visibility. And then tighten up security by setting what they get to see in your public profile.
4. Caution with applications
Third party applications have given Facebook a good name and sometimes have left it red faced too. Third party applications with doubtful roots could be spyware by another name. Applications which you authorize need your profile info to work and sometimes that of your friends in the network (that also goes for apps installed by your friends). To cite another example, quizzes and puzzles are fun but they can influence you to reveal some personal information. So, tread on the side of caution.
- From the Privacy page, click on Applications. The Overview describes the situations in which an application accesses your information. From the Settings page you can checkmark the types of information your friends can see about you through applications.
- You can also go to the Applications page (click on Applications on the foot bar) and edit the privacy settings for each individual application. A privacy setting controls the status display on your Facebook profile page.
5. Screen your messages
A scam behind a Facebook impostor’s message is the oldest trick in the scammer’s book. Beware of messages which ask for personal information or cash/donations. Even if you receive a message from a pal asking for sensitive information or monetary help, verify the request with a phone call. You can also do an authenticity check by asking questions which can be back-checked.
6. Be wary of direct links
Don’t click on direct links that you get in messages or wall postings especially from unknown sources. They could be a ruse to malware sites or fake login sites. Look at each link carefully before being trigger happy with your mouse. A genuine link can be made out by looking up the domain name with a Google search. Though with a shortened URL, it could be a problem. Many links direct the user to a fake Facebook login page which can compromise your password. Facebook usually never asks you to log-in again to view another page.
7. Community rip-offs
Joining a community may get you a bunch of contacts in one go. But it can also be a scam trap if the community is a sham. Fake communities could serve as marketing gimmicks, often with the intent of building mass mailing lists. Select your community and look around the member profiles before jumping in.
These are just some of the ways we can guard against scam attacks. The best way of course, is to click logout and pick up the telephone. But that’s like picking up paranoia and ditching the fun of social networking. Simple precautions like choosing a secure password, familiarity with all the security options and safe browsing habits can keep us protected.
Source: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/facebook-impostors-how-to-configure-your-profile-to-protect-yourself-from-scammers-n/