Despite the security concerns that have plagued Facebook for years, most people are sticking around and new members keep on joining. This has led Facebook to break records numbers with over one billion monthly active users as of October 2012—and around 600 million active daily users.

We share our lives on Facebook. We share our birthdays and our anniversaries. We share our vacation plans and locations. We share the births of our sons and the deaths of our fathers. We share our most cherished moments and our most painful thoughts. We divulge every aspect of our lives.

But we sometimes forget who's watching.

We use Facebook as a tool to connect, but there are those people who use that connectivity for malicious purposes. We reveal what others can use against us. They know when we're not home and for how long we're gone. They know the answers to our security questions. People can practically steal our identities—and that's just with the visible information we purposely(?) give away through our public Facebook profile.

The scariest part is that as we get more comfortable with advances in technology, we actually become more susceptible to hacking. As if we haven't already done enough to aid hackers in their quest for our data by sharing publicly, those in the know can get into our emails and Facebook accounts to steal every other part of our lives that we intended to keep away from prying eyes.

In fact, you don't even have to be a professional hacker to get into someone's Facebook account.

It can be as easy as running Firesheep on your computer for a few minutes. In fact, Facebook actually allows people to get into someone else's Facebook account without knowing their password. All you have to do is choose three friends to send a code to. You type in the three codes, and voilà—you're into the account. It's as easy as that.

In this article I'll show you these, and a couple other ways that hackers (and even regular folks) can hack into someone's Facebook account. But don't worry, I'll also show you how to prevent it from happening to you.

The easiest way to "hack" into someone's Facebook is through resetting the password. This could be easier done by people who are friends with the person they're trying to hack.

The first step would be to get your friend's Facebook email login. If you don't already know it, try looking on their Facebook page in the Contact Info section.

Next, click on Forgotten your password? and type in the victim's email. Their account should come up. Click This is my account.

It will ask if you would like to reset the password via the victim's emails. This doesn't help, so press No longer have access to these?

It will now ask How can we reach you? Type in an email that you have that also isn't linked to any other Facebook account.

It will now ask you a question. If you're close friends with the victim, that's great. If you don't know too much about them, make an educated guess. If you figure it out, you can change the password. Now you have to wait 24 hours to login to their account.

If you don't figure out the question, you can click on Recover your account with help from friends. This allows you to choose between three and five friends.

It will send them passwords, which you may ask them for, and then type into the next page. You can either create three to five fake Facebook accounts and add your friend (especially if they just add anyone), or you can choose three to five close friends of yours that would be willing to give you the password.

How to Protect Yourself

Use an email address specifically for your Facebook and don't put that email address on your profile.

When choosing a security question and answer, make it difficult. Make it so that no one can figure it out by simply going through your Facebook. No pet names, no anniversaries—not even third grade teacher's names. It's as easy as looking through a yearbook.

Learn about recovering your account from friends. You can select the three friends you want the password sent to. That way you can protect yourself from a friend and other mutual friends ganging up on you to get into your account.

Software Keylogger

A software keylogger is a program that can record each stroke on the keyboard that the user makes, most often without their knowledge. The software has to be downloaded manually on the victim's computer. It will automatically start capturing keystrokes as soon as the computer is turned on and remain undetected in the background. The software can be programmed to send you a summary of all the keystrokes via email.

CNET has Free Keylogger, which as the title suggests, is free. If this isn't what you're looking for, you can search for other free keyloggers or pay for one.

Hardware Keylogger

These work the same way as the software keylogger, except that a USB drive with the software needs to be connected to the victim's computer. The USB drive will save a summary of the keystrokes, so it's as simple as plugging it to your own computer and extracting the data. You can look through Keelog for prices, but it's bit higher than buying the software since you have the buy the USB drive with the program already on it.

How to Protect Yourself

Use a firewall. Keyloggers usually send information through the internet, so a firewall will monitor your computer's online activity and sniff out anything suspicious.

Install a password manager. Keyloggers can't steal what you don't type. Password mangers automatically fill out important forms without you having to type anything in.

Update your software. Once a company knows of any exploits in their software, they work on an update. Stay behind and you could be susceptible.

Change passwords. If you still don't feel protected, you can change your password bi-weekly. It may seem drastic, but it renders any information a hacker stole useless.

This option is much more difficult than the rest, but it is also the most common method to hack someone's account. The most popular type of phishing involves creating a fake login page. The page can be sent via email to your victim and will look exactly like the Facebook login page. If the victim logs in, the information will be sent to you instead of to Facebook. This process is difficult because you will need to create a web hosting account and a fake login page.

If you want to know how to do this, follow the detailed instructions on Hacker9's website. Users are very careful now with logging into Facebook through other links, though, so that only adds to this already difficult process.

How to Protect Yourself

Don't click on links through email. If an email tells you to login to Facebook through a link, be wary. Check the URL. If you're still doubtful, go directly to the main website and login the way you always do.

Phishing isn't only done through email. It can be any link on any website. Even ads that pop up can be malicious. Don't click on any sketchy looking links that ask for your information.

Use an anti-virus like Norton or McAfee.

Cookies allow a website to store information on a user's hard drive and later retrieve it. These cookies contain important information that a hacker can sniff out and steal if they are on the same Wi-Fi network as the victim. They don't actually get the login passwords, but they can still access the victim's account.

Firesheep is a Firefox add-on that sniffs web traffic on an open Wi-Fi connection. It collects the cookies and stores them in a tab on the side of the browser.

From there, the hacker can click on the saved cookies and access the victim's account, as long as the victim is still logged in. Once the victim logs out, it is impossible for the hacker to access the account.

How to Protect Yourself

On Facebook, go to your Account Settings and check under Security. Make sure Secure Browsing is enabled. Firesheep can't sniff out cookies on HTTPS, so try to steer away from HTTP.

Full time SSL. Use Firefox add-ons such as HTTPS-Everywhere or Force-TLS.

Log off a website when you're done. Firesheep can't stay logged in to your account if you log off.

Use only trustworthy Wi-Fi networks. A hacker can be sitting across from you at Starbucks and looking through your email without you knowing it.

Use a VPN. These protect against any sidejacking no matter what website you're on.

Protecting Yourself: Less Is More

Social networking websites are great ways to stay connected with old friends and meet new people. Creating an event, sending a birthday greeting and telling your parents you love them are all a couple of clicks away.

Facebook isn't something you should steer away from, but you do need to be aware of your surroundings and make smart decisions about what you put up on your profile. The less information you give out on Facebook for everyone to see, the more difficult you make it for hackers.

Article Courtesy of Nelson Aguilar
Images by Digital Trends, Avitricks, eSecurity Planet, Phishing1122, Tech-Glide

Disclaimer: An author of this article is BrainBongo's contributor and the views/values expressed here do not necessarily reflect ours (Team BrainBongo).

"We started our own business without any money from friends, relatives or a bank loan. The reason why we started our own business was because we were desperately unemployed but again we had the vision for the future. At the beginning nothing was encouraging and nothing seemed to work. The only asset we relied upon was our own ideas and our biggest challenge was to transform those ideas into reality without any initial capital investment."

"Our first idea was to start a newspaper business. We started a newspaper not because it was the best business idea but because we loved newspapers and we happened to be inspired by role models who invested in newspapers. But after one year the newspaper business collapsed and we went broke. Then I met a friend owner of Imalaseko Supermarkets and Lamada Hotels. Mr. Kishimba gave me this piece of advice “ you do not keep cows because you love seeing cows but because they give you milk”.

Do you want to start your own business?. It's very possible because you do not need a lot to start a business. But it’s not a good idea to start a business with money from the bank as they demand high interest rates. It is important to start as small as possible; be your own boss, your own secretary, your own accountant, your own salesman and your own cashier. I once heard Rev. Getrude Rwakatare speaking in a women entrepreneurship forum and she said " when we started, I was the CEO and the school bus conductor at the sametime".

Again try to come up with business ideas which can push customers to pay you an advance before you deliver the service. Or look for products that are common and mostly demanded by customers. And if you are in the consulting business eg) IT professionals, you can ask your clients to allow you work from their offices to avoid office space rental charges.

But there is always one challenge in starting a business. I know many people would want ideas that are unique or ideas that have never been seen before. But the truth of the matter is that there are very few new ideas you can come up with unless you are the next Steve Jobs. Apart from that, when you start a business you need cash to pay for various bills so it is advised to think of a business that get you cash on daily basis as you can’t wait three month for a cheque. On top of that, avoid paying cash on services that you need for running your business, instead make use of available facillities eg) your own sitting or bed room for an office and or a hotel lounge as a meeting place for your customers depending on the type of business you are in. This model has been very successful for chinese start-ups.

Because you may not have enough money to promote your services or products, take advantage of social media including facebook and twitter. There is no cost involved in opening up a facebook page and this is the best way to start promoting your business.

Reginald Mengi owner of IPP Group ever told me that business is an organized friendship. People who know you better including your relatives, friends, schoolmates or workmates can be your first customers. Create a network of friends who will buy your products and or refer you to their networks. Through this way, it will be easy for you to penetrate the market using a network of friends who can buy your products or services as much as they trust you or they have been referred by people they trust. The same model has been agreat success for network marketing companies such as GNLD and Forever Living.

When we started the newspaper, we did not have money to employ journalists. We relied upon friends to write articles and when we started the Speakers’ Burea business , we also requested friends to volunteer speaking in our events. Again, when we started the car hire business, we didn’t own any car and we relied upon friends' cars for sub-hire whenever we got clients who wanted to hire cars from our company. I have learn't through experience that business is about networking, the more you can network, the more the potential to attract customers.

My vision is to be an industrialist because I come from an industrial background. I was groomed by a cousin brother Mr. Robert Edward owner of ALEA Properties USA who used to operate the biggest office furniture factory in East and Central Africa. Since then, I wanted to become like him and I dreamt of owning a factory one day. But opening a factory needs a lot of initial capital investment for land, machines, manpower, taxes etc. But since I was a graduate with no capital to start a business, I decided to work out an altenative route. I knew that there is always an altenative way to achieve a dream. I therefore did put a long-term plan to accumulate capital through a set of businesses that are within my reach.

One day I was invited for a radio show on Radio One Stereo and I shared a plattform with an entrepreneur who had made a fortune in electrical products under the brand known as Tropical Power products. After the show, I asked him " how did you manage to start a manufacturing firm? He replied, “We envisioned manufacturing electrical products but we didn’t have enough capital. We were two of us both graduates of the University of Dar es Salaam. We were well trained in electrical engineering and we had the know how. So we designed various types of electrical products including power cables and we registered the Tropical Power products as a global brand. We did that because we researched and found that it would have been very expensive to set up such a high-tech factory in Tanzania. We therefore negotiated with overseas manufacturers to manufacture for us on large quantity order basis and todate the business is a big success”

Original Source:Paul Mashauri's Blog