Industry & Advocacy News
September 5, 2024
We want to make you aware of a series of hacking incidents targeting authors’ Facebook accounts over the last few weeks. We’ve received a number of reports from members detailing how hackers obtained control of Facebook profiles and pages belonging to them or other authors in their communities. In some instances, the hackers began to impersonate the authors and use their pages to run scams, soliciting money from their connections.
We are concerned that hackers are deliberately targeting authors’ accounts to exploit their large followings and connections. The attacks often begin with the hacker changing the email address associated with the Facebook account, effectively locking out the rightful owner. Many authors became aware of the hack after receiving email notices from Facebook informing them that their account email addresses had been changed. We suspect that the hackers may have initially hacked into the authors’ emails and used them to log into the accounts before changing the email addresses attached to the accounts.
One Authors Guild member reported losing more than 6,000 friends and followers due to a hacker taking over their account. Unfortunately, the hacker also managed to scam one of the author’s connections out of $1,000 via PayPal before Facebook deactivated the compromised profile. Another author with hundreds of thousands of followers fell victim to a similar attack, while multiple others have reported their profiles being cloned, with hackers impersonating them and contacting their followers.
Losing access to a Facebook profile and account can be professionally damaging for authors because re-gaining access to the accounts is a difficult process that often doesn’t work. We have heard from authors who contacted Facebook after their accounts were hacked who said they have not received adequate assistance. We are talking to Facebook and Meta about a process that would enable authors to regain access to compromised accounts.
Protecting Your Facebook Account
While we continue our efforts to convince Facebook and Meta to implement processes for quicker and more efficient responses to account hacking—and, especially, the re-instatement of compromised accounts—we recommend taking the following steps to ensure your Facebook account is secure:
If you suspect your account has been compromised:
For more information on securing your account and reporting potential hacks please visit these Facebook help pages:
If you are an Authors Guild member whose Facebook account was hacked, please email the relevant information to staff@authorsguild.org. In your email, please tell us how many followers you had, whether you contacted Facebook/Meta, and whether you were able to regain control of your profile and author page.
Authors Report Nonpayment and Other Serious Concerns with TouchPoint Press and Adelaide Books
March 29, 2024
