Have you ever seen your friend post a bulletin on MySpace about how they made a $1,000 on the weekend? It’s the first sign your friend’s MySpace account has been hacked. Maybe you’ve had your MySpace account hacked and would like to know what you can do to prevent it from happening again in the future. Then this post is for you.

Phishing

Most people have their account hacked by clicking on a stranger’s profile only to be taken to what looks like the MySpace login screen. Turns out it’s not a MySpace login screen and the username and password you just entered is saved for future use by the bad guys. The biggest thing is if you find yourself suddenly sent to the login page when you haven’t signed out, look at the url and make sure it says myspace.com in the address bar. If it has happened to you, you should be able to remedy the problem by simply changing your password watching for the proper web address in the future. Netcraft explains MySpace phishing sites in detail.

Viruses

Another way people have their account hacked is from malware installed on their system that records their keystrokes. This is an uncommon problem for MySpace accounts because people looking to watch your keystrokes wouldn’t risk the legal trouble for MySpace accounts. They’d much rather take your bank account or something more valuable. If you change your password repeated times and you keep getting hacked, then you may have a virus and you’ll need to reinstall your operating system and start over.

Other

People can also think their account was hacked if they neglect to log out and someone uses the computer after them. So be sure to logout and not just close the window, especially if you’re at a library, internet cafe, or the like.

What if you’ve been hacked?

Read my post on what to do if your MySpace has been hacked.

** Update

This is an old MySpace hacking technique. It doesn’t work anymore, but it was a huge exploit.

If you are wanting to hack into someone else’s account, there is a possible exploit, which you can learn from the last paragraph in my post about what to do if your MySpace has been hacked. Please note that this kind of behavior will get you banned from MySpace and could result in legal action against you.