Stupid question

diveunderthebonnet

Not stupid for most but here goes.
I see a lot of contacts on Facebook post - Please do not accept any friends request from me as my phone has been hacked.

A) How do their phones get hacked in the first place
If i was unlucky and had my smartphone hacked how do you " Un-hack it "

Sorry if the questions seem stupid but as a silver surfer ( over 75 ) not as techy as most

Regards DUTB.

PHK

It’s very rare that a phone is hacked. It’s more common that a fraudster sets up a new profile using the name and photo of someone else and then sells dodgy stuff on Marketplace. They’ll also post crazy stuff (that only the gullible will fall for) which gives them a list of people who liked or commented on the post. 

TadleyBaggie

Most of the ones I have seen have been from fake profiles, set up to pretend to be the original. So no hacking required. Otherwise their Facebook account could be compromised if they have been careless with password management.

Hacked phones, should be extremely rare.

mark_cycling00

People often lose their phone or have it stolen. If they don't have a screen lock or have not enabled the 'lock phone if it's being stolen" settings then the thief can get into their Facebook.

You can trigger a total reset of your mobile from your computer but many people don't know how to do this.

Many people use the same password everywhere and never change it. They don't enable 2-factor authentication either.

Occasionally a website has its passwords "stolen" and if someone had an account there then anyone can try to login to their Facebook account using the password that they use everywhere.

Until recently, if you used Microsoft cloud you could view login attempts to your account that happened every few hours from hackers all over the world. This is how often people are trying to get into your accounts. All your accounts, every day. Think about it.

People will say "phone was hacked" because it's less embarrassing.

There are hundreds of clever ways to hack into anyone's phone but you really need to be rich or important for this to happen because it takes a lot of effort.

You can view which of your passwords are available to hackers if you have a Google account. 
This feature is being withdrawn soon because it inadvertently gives people a false sense of security if they their passwords haven't been hacked yet

Vitor

Phones are rarely “hacked” in the Hollywood sense. What usually happens is account compromise. Weak or reused passwords, phishing links, fake Facebook messages, or scam texts hand over login details. The fix is simple. Change passwords, enable two-factor authentication, log out of all sessions, and ignore panic posts. If malware is suspected, update the phone or factory reset. Most cases are user error, not hacking.

Ergates

Often when someone claims their phone/facebook account has been "hacked" - it's because they've posted something abhorrent and are trying to deny it was them. 

saajan_12

diveunderthebonnet said:

Not stupid for most but here goes.
I see a lot of contacts on Facebook post - Please do not accept any friends request from me as my phone has been hacked.

A) How do their phones get hacked in the first place
If i was unlucky and had my smartphone hacked how do you " Un-hack it "

Sorry if the questions seem stupid but as a silver surfer ( over 75 ) not as techy as most

Regards DUTB.

THis specific message often means a fraudster is posing as the 'hacked person' by creating a similar profile, so that they can spread spam to the hacked person's friends. 

The fraudstar will often just get their info from public info on other social media sites so there is no 'hacking'. Other times they have managed to see the person's contact list or some personal data through a (relatively small) password leak. 

There's often nothing to do to 'unhack' other than change passwords and tell people to ignore that fake account. 

MyRealNameToo

diveunderthebonnet said:

Not stupid for most but here goes.
I see a lot of contacts on Facebook post - Please do not accept any friends request from me as my phone has been hacked.

A) How do their phones get hacked in the first place
If i was unlucky and had my smartphone hacked how do you " Un-hack it "

Sorry if the questions seem stupid but as a silver surfer ( over 75 ) not as techy as most

Regards DUTB.

Why not ask one of your friends what they mean? 

In principle they could be meaning a number of different things if you take them at their word but also could be meaning something that has nothing to do with their phone. 

Presumably you are already friends with your friend so why would you be getting a new friend request? Sounds more likely that they are saying someone has setup a counterfeit profile pretending to be them. Now it could also be that someone has managed to get access to their real Facebook profile, accessed their email account and/or gained some level of access to the phone to get contacts details to identify who to friend request but it doesnt automatically follow that this has happened. 

Some won't have had their phone hacked but may have had their phone number transferred to another sim meaning any text message based 2FA goes to someone elses' phone. I believe Facebook uses sms for 2FA (or at least it's an option) but that would more support their account being taken over which won't result in friend requests.