Online Family Safety

Teens and the Facebook Hacking Epidemic

By Kim Boatman

A 13-year-old California boy couldn’t figure out why kids at his junior high were snickering and laughing at him. Then he signed onto his Facebook account.

He was shocked to find his status had been changed to a degrading, obscene reference about his body. “He was absolutely mortified,” says his mother. “He doesn’t want to go to school.” His parents quickly shut down his Facebook account, but the damage had been done.

He’s not alone. Facebook can be a treacherous place for teens, who are frequent targets of hacking, malware and other threats because of their impulsiveness, their relaxed attitudes about privacy and their lack of restraint online. Quite often, they’re even victimizing each other. Nearly 25 percent of teens said they had hacked someone else’s social media profile, according to an August 2009 survey by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit devoted to the impact of media and entertainment on kids and families.

Know the threats
Social networking is such an integral part of most teens’ lives that 22 percent told Common Sense Media that they check their Facebook and similar accounts more than 10 times a day. However, teens aren’t educated about the threats they face, says Kate Reilly, director of Start Strong Rhode Island, an organization in Rhode Island that develops grassroots solutions to digital abuse and teen dating violence. “Nobody teaches this stuff in school,” says Reilly. “Nobody teaches their parents.”

The dangers your teen faces on Facebook and other social networking sites are twofold. First, friends, ex-friends and acquaintances can hack into an account and post damaging and embarrassing information. “A lot of teens have their Facebook accounts violated because they were loose with their passwords,” says Larry Magid, co-founder of ConnectSafely and founder of SafeKids, nonprofit websites that offer tips on keeping kids safe online. “Giving a password to a friend, even a good friend, is a bad idea. Friends sometimes become ex-friends.”

Teens also are likely targets for phishing attacks, where the bad guys trick the victim into clicking on a link that installs malware or uses your Facebook account to then spam your contacts. Criminal types often send invitations to view a funny or risque video. An invitation might even suggest that the supposedly hilarious video features your teen.

How to protect your teen
When it comes to safeguarding a social media account, experts offer these tips for you and your teenager:

1. Guard your password. It might sound elementary to adults, but it’s not so clear-cut to teens. Remind your teen not to share passwords with anyone under any circumstances. Know that teens who might even be grounded, who have been barred by parents from using Facebook, will often “borrow” a password to gain temporary access to the social network. Communicating with the parents of your teen’s friends will help you be aware when other teens are placed on restriction.If your teen’s account is hacked, change the password right away.
   
   If your teen uses the same password for other accounts, those passwords should be changed as well, says Paul Balcerak, a new media editor who works frequently in social media for a publisher in greater Seattle.
2. Confirm unusual messages with friends. Balcerak’s young relative recently was hacked because “she clicked on a link she shouldn’t have and entered her username and password without stopping to think, ‘Hey, this is weird,’” says Balcerak. If a message contains punctuation or grammar that doesn’t sound like what that particular friend would say, advise your teen to confirm the message is coming from a real person. Often, your teen will receive a canned, robotic-sounding message back or nothing at all, a dead giveaway that the link is bogus, says Balcerak.
3. Check the URL. If your teen is asked to authenticate a username and password while already logged onto Facebook or another social networking account, that’s a red flag. Check the URL bar to ensure the address is authentic. Be wary of the near-identical addresses, which phishing scams employ, says Balcerak. Never click on a link to sign into Facebook.
4. Know your friends. Collecting hundreds of friends might impart some social status, but it’s a dangerous practice, says Reilly. “Discourage your kids from becoming friends with anybody they don’t know in the real world.”
5. Sign up for an account. Familiarize yourself with the way social networking sites such as Facebook work by signing up for an account. Educate yourself about privacy settings, says Reilly. Even if your teen resists being your Facebook friend, you can monitor who your child befriends. “It’s hard for parents to really keep a handle on it unless they’re on Facebook,” says Reilly.
6. Keep security software updated. “Criminals and hackers are increasingly going after social networking services like Facebook and Twitter,” says Magid. Make sure you use up-to-date security software and keep your browser and operating system current, installing all patches and updates, advises Magid.
7. Let friends and authorities know. If your account is compromised, let friends know so they won’t click on malicious links sent from your account. Report hacked accounts to Facebook. Click on Settings, then click on Help. Click on Security, and you’ll see a number of hacking-related options.

Teaching your teens to handle their Facebook accounts in a responsible way will go a long way toward preventing hacking mishaps, says Reilly. “The overwhelming majority of hacking and digital abuse is really highly preventable,” she adds.