Top 10 Ways How Hackers Can Hack Facebook Accounts

Facebook is one of the most widely used social networking site with more than 750 million users, as a reason if which it has become the number 1 target of hackers, I have written a couple of post related to facebook hacking here at RHA, In my previous post which I wrote in 2010 related to facebook hacking and security 4 ways on How to hack facebook password, I mentioned the top methods which were used by hackers to hack facebook accounts, however lots of things have changed in 2012, Lots of methods have went outdated or have been patched up by facebook and lots of new methods have been introduced, So in this post I will write the top 10 methods how hackers can hack facebook accounts in 2011.
So here are the top 10 methods which have been the most popular:

1. Facebook Phishing 

Phishing still is the most popular attack vector used for hacking facebook accounts, There are variety of methods to carry out phishing attack, In a simple phishing attacks a hacker creates a fake login page which exactly looks like the real facebook page and then asks the victim to login into that page, Once the victim logins through the fake page the victims “Email Address” and “Password” is stored in to a text file, The hacker then downloads the text file and get’s his hands on the victims credentials.

2. Keylogging 

Keylogging, according to me is the easiest way to hack a facebook password, Keylogging sometimes can be so dangerous that even a person with good knowledge of computers can fall for it. A keylogger is basically a small program which once is installed on victims computer will record every thing which victim types on his/her computer. The logs are then send back to the attacker by either FTP or directly to hackers email address. I have dedicated a half of my newsest book “An introduction to keyloggers, RATS And Malware” to this topic.

3. Stealers 

Almost 80% percent people use stored passwords in their browser to access the facebook, This is is quite convenient but can sometimes be extremely dangerous, Stealers are software’s specially designed to capture the saved passwords stored in the victims browser, Stealers once FUD can be extremely powerful. If you want to how stealers work and how you can set up your own one?, Kindly refer the book above.

4. Session Hijacking

Session Hijacking can be often very dangerous if you are accessing Facebook on a http:// connection, In a Session Hijacking attack a hacker steals the victims browser cookie which is used to authenticate a user on a website and uses to it to access victims account, Session hijacking is widely used on Lan’s. I have already written a three part series on How session hijacking works? and also a separate post on Facebook session hijacking.

5. Sidejacking With Firesheep

Sidejacking attack went common in late 2010, however it’s still popular now a days, Firesheep is widely used to carry out sidejacking attacks, Firesheep only works when the attacker and victim is on the same wifi network. A sidejacking attack is basically another name for http session hijacking, but it’s more targeted towards wifi users.

6. Mobile Phone Hacking

Millions of Facebook users access Facebook through their mobile phones. In case the hacker can gain access to the victims mobile phone then he can probably gain access to his/her Facebook account. Their are lots of Mobile Spying softwares used to monitor a Cellphone.
7. DNS Spoofing 
If both the victim and attacker are on the same network, an attacker can use a DNS spoofing attack and change the original facebook.com page to his own fake page and hence can get access to victims facebook account.

8. USB Hacking 

If an attacker has physical access to your computer, he could just insert a USB programmed with a function to automatically extract saved passwords in the browser.
9. Man In the Middle Attacks
If the victim and attacker are on the same lan and on a switch based network, A hacker can place himself b/w the client and the server or he could also act as a default gateway and hence capturing all the traffic in between, ARP Poisoning which is the other name for man in the middle attacks is a very broad topic and is beyond the scope of this article.

Learn How: Exploiting CCTV Private Cameras

10. Botnets 

Botnets are not commonly used for hacking facebook accounts, because of it’s high setup costs, They are used to carry more advanced attacks, A botnet is basically a collection of compromised computer, The infection process is same as the keylogging, however a botnet gives you, additional options in for carrying out attacks with the compromised computer. Some of the most popular botnets include Spyeye and Zeus.