Facebook Hacking vs Cloning & Blocking Followers - Overview & Prevention Tips from a Former IT Auditor

Facebook Hacking vs Cloning Overview AND Guide how to Identify Who is "Following" You and how to Restrict or BLOCK them from a former IT Auditor

by Vance Jochim, FiscalRangers.com Feb. 24, 2017 Updated to add section B on March 9, 2018.

The short URL to return to this page is: http://tinyurl.com/FacebookCloning

Note: Unfortunately, Facebook does not provide an option to restrict posts, friend requests or followers from specific countries, so you have to follow tips in section B to limit who follows you. (You can restrict contacts by country for PAGES but not personal profile accounts.)

This Guide now has TWO sections as of March 9, 2018.

A. is on Hacking / Cloning, and

B. is on Followers and how to restrict who follows you and how to BLOCK unwanted "friends".

A. Facebook Hacking vs Cloning Overview and Solutions

Update Jan. 4, 2018 - Here is a Facebook HELP page on "How Do I deal with Spam?"

Update Mar. 4, 2018 - A Florida County Clerk had her Facebook account "cloned" but the ABC TV reporter failed to provide detection and prevention details like I have below. http://www.abc-7.com/story/37628246/facebook-cloning-targets-lee-co-clerk-of-court

Many Facebook users are reporting their Facebook account was "hacked", when it was really duplicated, or cloned.

I used to be a software developer and information systems auditor.

Most Facebook accounts are NOT hacked, but CLONED.

Update March 6, 2017: Here is a video of an actual cloning example, and how I reported it.

Hacking would indicate they got your password, logged in to your actual account and made changes, took data, etc. That is RARE.

Usually, a duplicate account of yours is created, and friends get a friend request from the fake account which was a duplicate or CLONE of your account.

Why would people try to clone your account and get your friends to like it?

They want to SCAM YOU or your FRIENDS

There are YouTube tutorials on creating Facebook profile clones, and here is one description of preventatiive techniques from www.hoax-slayer.net .

"Once the scammers have a few “friends” on the fake profile, they can then start sending scam messages in the name of their victim.

They may try to draw the friends into advance fee scams claiming that the victim has won a large sum of money and offering the “friend” the chance to also win.

They may send messages that claim the victim has been stranded in a foreign country and needs a short-term loan to get out of trouble. Because the recipients of the message think they are talking to someone they know, they may agree to “loan” the money.

The scammers may also use the illusion of friendship to collect personal information from the victim’s friends. A clever cloner may even be able to commit identity theft by tricking the victim’s friends into divulging a large amount of their personal and financial information."

How the Clone of your account is made:

The cloner copies some pictures and contacts from your own account, then sends friend requests to enough people to get them signed up.

Now, I ALWAYS review a profile of any friend request and see if there is any depth to the newsfeed, common friends, lots of pictures, favorite movies, etc. Clone accounts will usually be almost empty of content.

If the requesting account is mostly empty, I search for the REAL person and usually two account names popup with same picture.

I report the clone to FB which usually shuts them down pretty quickly. I also notify the REAL friend.

PS: One way that a cloner finds out who your friends are is they get you to post a detailed, uniquely worded request for friends to COPY and paste the same wording into the friends profile.

Then the cloner only has to search on that uniquely worded request (or phone number) to find all your friends foolish enough to do that.

They also tell you NOT to share it, but to copy and paste. Then they send friend requests from the cloned account to those people.

Thus, DO NOT copy and paste such info to your profile. This method is also used by marketers to pick up leads.

Update Mar. 8, 2017: Here is a Tampa NBC video report on another security danger, where Facebook users answer quizzes that could result in downloading viruses or giving away personal information.

Conclusion:

1. Understand that most "hacking reports" are really cloning or duplicates, and your own account should most likely be safe. But be sure to have a strong password.

2. If asked to friend someone you think is already a friend, visit the suspiciaous profile and research if the account is empty or a duplicate like mentioned above.

3. Don't copy and paste unique terms into your profile even if a friend requests you do so. They could even request you post a hotline phone number. Then any scammer can use the unique phrase in a Facebook search request and find all that person's "friends" for scamming or marketing purposes.

4. REPORT any friend requests from clone accounts of friends to Facebook. Then inform your friend with a private message.

B. Identifying who is Following You on Facebook and how to restrict or BLOCK them (Added 3/9/2018).

A woman Facebook friend was concerned about new "followers" who she did not know, and how to block unwanted followers. People can "follow" you without you approving them IF you allow ANYONE to follow you, but you can restrict who follows you to only FRIENDS you have approved. (I personally see some women who have a terrible problem with this, such as unwanted proposals, foreign grooming of young students, lewd comments, etc. I have not seen a way yet to block by country of origin for PERSONAL profiles, but you can do it for PAGES. Facebook needs to allow users to block by country of origin for personal profiles. Facebook users need to file complaints with Facebook about this security problem, and INCLUDE copies of the disturbing posts they get. VJ )

Here is what I recommended to restrict who was following her (Such as scammers or those from the Middle East). This method is different than blocking, which you do when you get a disturbing post and I cover blocking further down:

The way to see who is following you, and then where you can limit who follows you to just friends you have approved is:

1) Click the little down arrow when in your profile (not newsfeed - see the image below which shows the arrow circled in red).

2) Select settings.

3) Click public posts in left column

4) In the "who can follow me" box, select "Friends" or "Public". If you select friends, only they can follow you. Strangers who you have not approved cannot follow you without you approving them to be a friend.

Next: To unfriend a "friend" or limit their access in other ways,

1) Go to your personal profile page (not news feed) and click the "Friends" tab under your main picture.

2) Put the cursor over the small "Friends" box by a questionable friends name, and act on the options such as unfriending. This method only lets friends you approved to follow you.

Next: Reject Unwanted Friend requests:

Now you can still get requests for friends, and if they seem questionable, you can reject the request, and if they seem to be a scammer, you can DELETE the request and once you click that, you can mark them as spam, and they can't contact you again.

Blocking is used to block suspicious people who sent a friend request or who posted something you disliked.

It is a different process than above.

There are three ways to block someone, then we will describe where to see everyone you blocked (like that nasty relative who posts negative political comments) with the option to unblock them.

1. To block someone via Privacy Shortcuts - you must know their Facebook name or email - also try to remember what their profile picture looks like to ensure you select the right person from the search described below:

Click at the top right QUESTION MARK of any Facebook page (NOT the little down arrow).

Click Privacy Shortcuts.

Click "How do I stop someone from bothering me?"

The resulting box provides a link to see all those you HAVE blocked, with an option to UNBLOCK them.

Enter the name in the search field box of the person you want to block and click Block.

The name you entered may produce a search list of several people with the same name.

Select the specific person you want to block from the list that appears and click Block again.

2. To block someone who just posted a disturbing post and you don't want to see their posts any longer:

Go here:  https://www.facebook.com/help/168009843260943?helpref=faq_content

3. To block a specific person who sent you a friend request, and you checked their profile and want to block them, then while on THEIR profile, select Block from the  menu on their cover photo. This is how I block people when they send me a friend request and I don't want them to contact me again.

This picture shows the tiny down arrow in the upper left of a profile page used to reach some of the options described above.