Cybersecurity Challenges in Social Media Erdal Ozkaya

4.2.7
 
Identity theft 
There are increasing reports of users complaining that their social media accounts 
have been hacked and taken control of by malicious people. Hackers have commonly used 
the ‘forgot password’ feature provided by these platforms to enable them to recover their 
accounts when they do not recall their passwords. Most recovery procedures will involve the 
user being asked to provide a birth date or answer a secret question. This is where stalking a 
user comes in handy. By merely going through the social media profile of the target, a hacker 

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can tell a user’s birthday from birthday wishes from one’s friends. As for the secret question, 
some of the answers can also be obtained from a user’s profile. The secret question might ask 
the name of a pet, friend, wife, mother, or cousin. This is information that can be 
conveniently obtained from the user’s profile. With this, it is possible for a hacker to steal the 
account of a social media user and use it for malicious purposes (Seda, 2014). The malicious 
purposes include extorting money from one’s friends, using the account to get some sensitive 
information from other people such as coworkers and even getting the privilege of asking 
some favors. 
4.2.8
 
Scams 
There are hacker groups that have only been specializing in spreading scams on social 
media and they have been doing so with a lot of success. There are many people joining 
social media for the first time and these are the main targets for the attackers. The following 
are some of the scams: 
a)
Nigerian prince – This scam is as old as emails but is still being used just with 
different variations. It mainly has a purported Nigerian prince that has a huge 
inheritance from his father but cannot access the money due to some legal or 
personal challenges. The scammer asks a social media user to help them by 
either giving out their bank account information to be used to deposit the huge 
amount of money. In other scenarios, they plea with the targets to help settle 
some charges for the money to be released. Of course, the money is never 
released but the target only finds out after spending quite some amount to help 
get the money released. 
b)
Cash grabs – This is an effective scam used by attackers that have already 
obtained the login information of some social media users. Mostly, these are 
credentials stolen by malware from browsers. The attacker will look at the 

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friends list or relatives of the user and then tell them that they have been 
involved in a bit of a situation and need money urgently. The concerned 
friends or relatives send the money to the scammer. The only problem is that 
the real account owner will not have been in any situation and will not even be 
aware that someone is taking advantage of their family and friends.