Are You at Risk? We hear about these things but never really think it’ll happen to us. It just happened to me!

I got an email with this as the subject line – “Security Alert from Facebook”. I thought it was a scam, “Yeah right, like I’m going to fall for that one”.

This was the opening dialogue – “Hi Peter,

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 need assistance. It is possible that your email account was compromised as well…”

It had a strange reply email address along with an odd web address to “update” your info. You can understand my scepticism.

I was just going to ignore it and move on but when I went to log in to my Facebook account – “Account Disabled!”

OMG, it was true. I was “Facebook-LESS”. The short story version of the “fix” was I replied to the email, updated all my email passwords and followed all the other instructions but I had to wait another 36 hours before my account was reactivated. Luckily, everything was still intact in my account, I was sweating on that cause I’d loaded a lot of video’s and stuff.

The other worry was “Had these criminals tricked any friends into sending money?” Apparently not, that was lucky! I’d hate to see your money wasted with a stranger. But, hey, if you’re feeling generous, I’m always good for more cash – Let’s go with that part – my PayPal account is xx xxx xx.

The moral of the story is stuff like this can happen to you and does happen to people close to you.

We help clients get better SEO rankings and one of the ways is by leveraging off Social Media Marketing. My password portfolio is over 500 passwords. I’ve set up dozens of different social media accounts for clients and linked them to their website so obviously I needed access to those accounts.

Imagine trying to keep a handle on your own plus dozens of client’s details. Obviously security is a major issue – I use RoboForm and couldn’t manage without it.

So, don’t let this happen to you. Get safe and secure and update your passwords regularly, RoboForm will help you keep a handle on it all.

They have a free version; you can get that here -

RoboForm Freebie

or you can go Pro which has no limitations on passwords stored and a few extra bonuses like password backups and stuff – you can see that here –

RoboForm Pro

Most of us are resistant to updating passwords because we get to “know” them and it can be a pain to do but identity fraud is becoming more common and is now a global problem, do be on guard.

To sort out the aftermath of a hacker is a lot more of a pain, let me tell you!

Up until now your Facebook profile link was just random characters like this

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=703908113

That’s memorable… not!

For the savvy people you could use the ‘profile to’ application which would look like this

http://profile.to/peterbutler/

which is certainly a lot sexier. (Especially with my name in it )

But Facebook are releasing this weekend the chance to grab your specific named Facebook username URL which will look like this

http://www.facebook.com/username/

This can either be your name or your niche or group name. Facebook have protection in place to guard against name squatting and you can read about that right here on their blog

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=90316352130

The Facebook countdown link is here

http://www.facebook.com/username/

Now, if your a client of mine then make sure you get signed up. Onece you’ve secured your names Facebook account let me know the URL so I can update your links on your site. If you’re technogically handicapped then get back to me by close of business tomorrow so we can schedule time to help you get registered.