Horrified, heartbroken, hacked: Tilbury mom takes on Meta in Facebook hack

Facebook page hacked A mom is horrified after her Down syndrome awareness Facebook page was hacked and spammed with pornographic images. Chris Campbell reports.

A Tilbury mother is at her wits end after enduring more than two weeks of online stress and uncertainty after a Facebook page she created over a decade ago was hacked over the holidays.

Cori-Anne Bliss Richardson said vulgar and lewd pictures involving pornography have been polluting the page she originally made to spread positive awareness about childhood Down syndrome and her 12-year-old daughter Stacyia.

“I'm a busy mom with a medically fragile child who runs a page to spread positive awareness,” Bliss Richardson stated. “I don't have time for this.”

Bliss Richardson said the problem began on Boxing Day after she responded to what appeared to be an official prompt from Facebook requesting confirmation of administrative credentials, only for the page she manages to be taken over quickly by someone with an IP address in Pakistan.

According to Bliss Richardson, dozens of inappropriate and unwarranted images have appeared in the ‘Stories’ feature of the page, noting many of the pictures were pornographic in nature, with concern some of the images depict minors.

“We're not sure how old these people are that are being shared,” Bliss Richardson explained. “And I'm sure they haven't given permission for their photos to be shown this way. They're very graphic.”

Bliss Richardson said the Facebook page has more than 35,000 followers, suggesting many have joined her effort to report the problem, with no response or action.

She said, “I was at the arena last night for skating lessons and complete strangers, people I know, I mean, it's everything everyone talks about. I can't go out and about without even strangers approaching me because there's such a following for her page because it's positive!”

She continued, “Nobody is getting a response back. Our reports are not being logged. And it's extremely concerning that community standards that should just generally be there are not being adhered to. That's very frustrating.”

“I've reported as someone pretending to be me. I have reported that I am being harassed. I have sent numerous screenshots with this man's name, with this man's email, with his company that has hacked many pages, as well as all the other screenshots to substantiate all of this. I'm so frustrated. I felt like I really didn't have much choice but then to try something different, which was [to] approach the media,” she added.

According to London, Ont.-based tech analyst Carmi Levy, account takeovers by cyber criminals, hackers, and other malevolent actors is a significant and rapidly growing problem on many social media platforms around the world.

He said many victims believe their only option is to turn to the media after repeated concerns are left unaddressed.

“Nothing has changed over the last number of years except for the fact that the incidents of this problem is going up. The perpetrators are becoming more sophisticated, and the company idly stands by and watches it happen,” Levy said.

He suggested it’s difficult for victims to pursue legal action through local authorities since the problem is a global concern, “If you find yourself in a situation like this, you need to message your community to let them know that your account has been taken over. Use other accounts on other platforms to set up kind of like a lifeboat presence so that folks know that it is not you [posting], [and] that they should not [follow the account] anymore.”

Levy said, “Continue to try to use the organization's recovery tools to try to gain control of the account back. Make sure that any new accounts that you set up on the platform to shift your activities over, use all of the security features available to you. Encryption. Two-factor or multi-factor authentication. Make sure that you're using unique passwords across multiple systems for each system because if you reuse the same password, it makes it easier for them to compromise other accounts.”

He said, “Also take a look at the network of who you are connected with on Facebook and other platforms. In many cases, these rogue accounts become your friend. You think they’re someone you know, that's how they gain access to your account. They use that as a springboard to get you to do things, click on a link, which of course then allows them to take your account over. Be very careful about curating your networks as well. That can go a long way toward ensuring that the bad guys don't get on the inside.”

After CTV News reached out to Facebook’s parent company Meta for comment or response, several administrative privileges were restored, according to Bliss Richardson, who noted several issues remain.

In an email to CTV News, a Meta spokesperson said an investigation is underway while efforts continue to be made to restore full page access.

Meantime, Meta offered more insight into what people can do if they’ve been hacked and the steps they can take to keep their accounts safe.

They said that the best course of action if someone suspects their accounts have been hacked is to report it online and follow the steps outlined there.

Meta also encourages the following practices to help keep accounts safe:

You can learn more about avoiding scams, including things to watch out for, here.