What if Facebook Is Hacked Next?

Every so often, someone complains about a PC meltdown made all the more catastrophic because they had no data backups. At this point, there's no excuse for that, except laziness. Inexpensive hard disks are available everywhere, while apps and programs will auto-backup your files to the Internet.

But recently the complaints have begun: people are losing data in the cloud. Someone gets kicked off their account, and the data is destroyed. Or someone makes some crazy mistake and the data is over-written, destroyed, or never archived properly.

There's also the possibility that the company housing your data will fold abruptly. It has probably already happened to some of you.

But what if that happened to Facebook?

Nobody ever thinks of a behemoth like Facebook shutting down. When a company like LiveJournal is still operating just fine, the likelihood of Facebook collapsing is remote. But what would you do if it did? Do you have important data on Facebook—status updates, video, photos, etc.—that are only stored on the social network? Is it your primary method of communication with friends and family? Are you dependent on Facebook?

If we are to believe all the government scare tactics (designed to make us think that we are on the verge of a cyber war), Facebook could be the No. 1 target of China, Russia, and/or North Korea.

CNNMoney says that Facebook claims to have created 4.5 million jobs. VentureBeat says that Facebook has 1.35 billion users with a combined economic impact of $227 billion. Mark Zuckerberg is essentially the prime minister of the second largest country in the world, followed by India with 1.25 billion. Facebook sounds like a perfect cyber attack target if you ask me.

For all we know, the Sony Pictures hack was nothing more than a dry run for a more serious target elsewhere. Facebook could be that target.

The Sony attack was fun and done in a few stages. First, some years back, the company had its online gaming taken out. Then, most recently, its motion picture division was breached. On top of that, we've seen Target and Home Depot hit by hackers, while other breaches here and there go unreported.

Facebook has got to be on the list of "fun" targets. It has over 1 billion users! I would not be in the least surprised if the hackers are not in there already, figuring out what exactly to do to disrupt the service in some spectacular way.

It just makes too much sense.

What could hackers do once they're inside Facebook? Here are some possibilities.

Steal From Facebook
Smart criminals should be able to do minuscule transaction thefts and take away or divert money from the advertising stream unnoticed. Even a little bit would be an astronomical sum for most of us.

Open Facebook
Hackers could remove restrictions so anyone can look at anyone else's account. Including all private messages. User data protection could be thrown right out.

Extort Users
The bad guys will certainly lock people out of their own accounts with a ransomware scheme requiring payment. It's a moneymaker elsewhere, with Facebook it's a bonanza.

Scramble Facebook
Like any malicious hacker, the most fun is just in the destruction. They'll make it unusable for anyone, just for giggles.

You get the idea.

Everyone knows this could happen, no matter how complex the backup and recovery system. At some point a disgruntled ex-employee will help make this happen. Or some psychopath working in the company could make it happen even sooner. Or high-end criminals or nation-state could this from the outside. There is nothing to prevent it.

So what will you do?