My Facebook Account Was Hacked

I awoke on Saturday morning to the alarmed emails and telephone messages of friends and family who were concerned for my well being. Apparently, overnight someone had hacked my Facebook account and started messaging my friends that I had been robbed at gunpoint and was stranded in London. These messages asked my friends to transfer money to a Matthew Dubin in London and gave a specific physical address and email, neither of which were mine.

I have never been to London.

I immediately logged into my Facebook account, updated my status to reassure my friends and changed my password. With my Facebook account secure, I thought all was well and settled into a relaxing weekend of babyproofing the house and watching the Jets move onto the AFC Championship game. After the game on Sunday afternoon I attempted to log into my Facebook account and...

It had been disabled!

Apparently somebody had reported the scam (a good idea) and Facebook decided to act first and ask questions later. Fair enough, only now I am without a Facebook account, including my new fan page, indefinitely. I have sent Facebook a detailed explanation of the situation and I have secured both my facebook account and all of my emails. I can only hope the Facebook folks will respond quickly and get my account up and running. Until then, you will have to communicate with me the old fashioned way - email! (or twitter @dubaruba)

If there is a lesson to be learned from this tale it is this - SECURE YOUR ACCOUNTS! As inconvenient as it is, use multiple, complex passwords and change them often. Espacially those involving money like banks, credit cards or PayPal. There are very greedy, very creative people out there looking for ways to rip us off.

See you on Facebook - I hope :(

Edit:

Check out this video

and this article on CNN

Update:

After confirming my identity Facebook has reinstated my account. I hear the average time it takes to reinstate a suspended account is 14 days. They got mine back up in 5 days! THANK YOU FACEBOOK! Here's the email I got:

Hi Matt,

We have changed your password and, if necessary, restored your contact email address. Please click the link below to generate a new password for your account:

If you did not already receive a security alert from Facebook, please review the following information.

Our systems indicate that your Facebook account has been compromised by cybercriminals attempting to impersonate you. These criminals often will try to trick your friends into sending them money by claiming that you are stuck in a far away location and in need of assistance. It is possible that your email account was compromised as well, as obtaining access to a victim’s email is one of the primary ways these cybercriminals have been operating. Please take the following steps to ensure the security of your Facebook account going forward:

1. Select a new, unique password for any email address associated with your account, making sure to avoid using the same password for any account.

2. Verify that you control all of the email addresses associated with your account on the Contact Email section at:

3. If you have not done so already, please add a security question to your account from the Account Settings page.

4. Visit the following page for more information about Facebook security and how to report suspicious material:

http://www.facebook.com/security

Finally, if you think you have been victimized by fraud, you can report this to Western Union's fraud hotline by calling 1-800-448-1492.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Theodore
User Operations
Facebook