What the Tech: Recovering lost Facebook data
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(ABC 6 News) – What if everything you’ve ever uploaded to Facebook just disappeared? What happens to all the photos of the kids, photos, and comments from friends who’ve passed away? If you’re ever forced to start a new Facebook account, how long would it take to add all of the friends whose contacts you had are lost?
You might think they’re safe in the Facebook cloud. But victims of the “Lily Collins Facebook Hack” know better.
Over a thousand Facebook users had their accounts hacked recently and have been locked out of their accounts. Over a decade of memories are gone in a snap. How did it happen and could it happen to anyone?
Raleigh LaPlant said he lost his account after clicking on a Facebook ad for a Chat GPT program.
“Don’t click on any links you don’t recognize because i think they’re able to actually compromise the account just by clicking a link,” LaPlant said.
The "Lily Collins Facebook Hack" has caused many people to lose their photos, videos, memories, and contacts they thought were stored safely on Facebook.
Which is frightening because who hasn’t clicked on a link in the newsfeed? In this case, the click installed a virus on victims’ computers which allowed hackers to log in to the account without using 2-factor authentication. Tricking Facebook into believing the device the hackers used was a device already verified as one the original Facebook account owner had used before.
After investigating the virus and sending it to a friend who looked even closer, LaPlant fears it can happen again if a Facebook user clicks on a malicious ad.
“This is going to run pretty rampant if they don’t get control of it.”
To protect and save your Facebook information, you should download it in the event another hack compromises your Facebook account.
Here’s how to do that:
● Go to Facebook’s settings and privacy on a computer and then click on “Privacy” on the left side of the page.
● Select “Your Facebook information”.
● You’ll be prompted to choose between transferring a copy of your information to Google Photos or Dropbox.
● You can also download your profile information. This is pretty much everything you’ve uploaded to Facebook including contacts, messages, and comments.
● This downloads all of that data onto a computer in HTML format for viewing.
● You should also download all of it in JSON, so, if you ever lose your Facebook profile, someone can import it into a new Facebook account.
● This takes a very long time. You may not get it delivered for a few days.
● You’ll receive an email from Facebook with a download link.
● Click the link and download the information onto a computer.
● Facebook says the link expires in a couple of days so download it right away or you’ll have to start the process over again.
For more tech news and a link to the Lily Collins Hack information, go to my blog.