Sunday Salon/Sunday Post – Facebook Nightmare – Weekly Rewind – Mail Call

The Sunday Salon used to be a meme but was getting so huge it became unmanageable, so it is now a Facebook group that has become an
informal week in review gathering place for bloggers.
It is also a place to share our thoughts about things of a bookish nature.

Happy Sunday Everyone!

Long story – As a blogger I am on Facebook every day, connecting with friends and family, talking about books, promoting Great Escapes Book Tours, playing Words with Friends, you know, normal stuff. Wednesday morning a few minutes after I posted for the first time, a friend messaged me about a message she had received from me. I had not sent her a message. Then I saw my account had sent a lot of messages. I quickly posted that “if you receive a post from me, don’t open it, I have been hacked.” Then I changed my password, sent feedback to Facebook that I had been hacked and started to delete permanently several hundred messages.

Then about an hour later, friends were sent another message, not my me! I changed my password again. Then I received a reply from Facebook directing me in the steps to follow to “clean my account”. Following those steps I found the app the hacker had attached to my account and was able to delete that, but not before another group of messages was sent.

I was trying to follow to rest of the steps but I kept receiving an error message that said “this address has been block by the user”, which would be me! I was so upset. I started Skyping” with my husband because he is more tech savvy than me but with him not sitting here and seeing the screens he was not much help.

I switched over from Chrome to Firefox and was able to complete all the steps. Then I went back to Chrome and saw in the small print of the error messages I was receiving “check your extensions” so I went into my Chrome settings and sure enough, an extension had been added that blocked the Facebook help messages.

I thought I was done, but no I was just getting started. Someone, maybe more than one of the person, not only reported that “a friend has been hacked” to Facebook but also reported that I was “sharing malware”. They quarantined my device. To gain access from this computer to Facebook they wanted to remotely scan my computer to be sure there was no malware. I had run a security scan myself in the midst of all this drama and it found 1 questionable thing that was blocked. I was really scared, how did I know this was a legit thing. Maybe it was a hacker.

After talking again to my husband and receiving another verification from Facebook I let them start their scan. It got hung up at about 49% and then my internet went out. I thought “oh, great! I am so stupid.” I have found out since the internet outage was local and had nothing to do with the scan. My husband was on his way home and would be here soon so he told me to start the scan again, so I did. Again it hung up at about 52%. I was absolutely losing my mind.

My husband thought it was an internet problem more than a Facebook problem so we started it again. It was now about 8 p.m. We worked on a plan for me to use a different computer the next day if necessary and I went to read. About 11 p.m. I checked the computer again and the scan was just finishing and found no malware. I posted a test post on Facebook and went to bed.

The next day I was able to post on my fan pages, comment on posts in my news feed and even post to my news feed, but when I tried to post directly to my personal page I was told that was restricted until later in the day which I didn’t understand that but soon things were back to normal.

Moral of the long story,

1. Change your passwords often.
2. Don’t open messages that only have a link with no explanation.
3. Check the Facebook page of the person who sent you the link to see if they have posted they we hacked. If they haven’t tag them in a post telling them you think they have been hacked.
4. When you report the situation to Facebook be sure to check the right boxes. While I was glad this worked out and now know my computer has been scanned by two sources it would have been devastating to lose my account because I was said to be “sharing malware”. It would mean 9 years of posts, pictures and memories on several pages and groups.

~Lori

Weekly Rewind August 21 – 26, 2017
Monday – My Reading Itinerary Monday! – Week #32 2017 – First Stop Mackinac Island

Tuesday – #Review / #Giveaway – Yews with Caution by Kate Collins

Wednesday – Cozy Wednesday with Jean Flowers – Author of Addressed to Kill #GuestPost / #Giveaway @BerkleyMystery

Thursday – #Review / #Giveaway – Deadly Choices by Karen Randau – Great Escapes Book Tour

Friday – #Spotlight / #Giveaway – To Kill a Hummingbird (A Bird Lover’s Mystery) by J.R. Ripley – Great Escapes Book Tour

Plus – Flashback Friday – Tagged for Death (A Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mystery) by Sherry Harris #Review / #Giveaway

And – #Review – Room For Doubt (A Carol Childs Mystery) by Nancy Cole Silverman

Saturday – #Spotlight / #Giveaway – McKinley Mystery Series by Carolyn Arnold – Books 6 – 11

Plus – #Spotlight / #Giveaway – Dead on the Bayou (A Twin Sisters Mystery) by June Shaw

I am hoping for a quiet week, no drama in real life or the blogosphere 🙂
I hope you have a wonderful week too!