Agony of Facebook users whose accounts are hacked

Cases of Facebook accounts being hacked are not new. The motivation behind hackers wanting to take over another person's account is a matter that continues to puzzle many.

This is despite the fact that creating a Facebook account is free and easy. However, what is more intriguing is the psychological dilemma that follows when the hacker starts using and posting things not related to the original owner's way of life, customs, beliefs, traits and even culture.

Stephene Mburu, a cyber café owner and who is one of the victims of Facebook account hacking claims that he woke up one day and found his account inaccessible.

He tried all means to get back the account which he had used for over six years to no avail. Upon checking whether the said account was still in operation, he was surprised to see the account in operation, albeit with a different user although the name was still the same.

What baffled him most was the kind of messages, pictures and interactions on his wall.

One of the posts read "proud to be gay", much to the dismay of Mburu's friends.

However, many of them seemed to be aware that the account could have been hacked since most of the new photos were not his.

Mburu later looked for an IT expert to recover the account and he was successful.

The first thing he did after accessing the account was to inform friends that the account had been hacked and they should disregard all the messages that had been sent during that period.

Ben Githimu, a cyber-security professional based Mt Kenya University says that the urge for some people to hack others social media account is for them to spread their ideologies.

"Many of those who hack other peoples accounts are purely motivated by the desire to spread their ideologies/way of life which in many a time is different from the mainstream society" says Mr. Githimu.

Social media users are often encouraged to change their passwords often to avoid such cases.

It is also important to ensure you log out from your machine especially when using computers in public spaces.