Czech Social Democrats' main candidate in Ústí latest victim of neo-Nazi hack

The neo-Nazi hackers of the Czech internet are continuing their assaults. After hacking the Twitter account of Vladimír Špidla (Czech Social Democratic Party – ČSSD) this morning, the Facebook profile of Jaroslav Foldyna, the leader of the party’s candidate list in the Ústí Region, was hacked this evening.

Evidently the hackers were able to use his account to also hack the Facebook profile of the ČSSD in Ústí nad Labem. The scenario is the same as in previous attacks, with the neo-Nazis posting links to the neo-Nazi, racist website White Media on the Facebook profiles along with many primitive, racist status updates.

"This page has been hacked, none of the opinions posted here are those of the ČSSD," the Facebook profile of the party in Ústí posted shortly after 9:30 PM this evening. The owners, however, still have not gotten their Facebook accounts back under their full control.

Jaroslav Foldyna is not the first victim of neo-Nazi hacking in recent days. Earlier today the neo-Nazis hacked the e-mail and Twitter accounts of former prime minister Vladimír Špidla (ČSSD), who is currently the party’s shadow environment minister.

Most recently the Facebook profile of the Změna ("Change") movement, which is running candidates in the upcoming elections to the lower house, was also hacked by someone posting links to White Media. Prior to that hack, the racists accessed the e-mail accounts and Facebook profiles of individuals and groups who have long spoken out against neo-Nazism and racism, such as journalist Saša Uhlová, news server Deník referendum, Amnesty International Brno, the "Let’s Block the Marches!" (Blokujeme!) platform and the "Nothing But Opinions" (Nic než názor) group.

Turn on your Facebook and Gmail protection through SMS messaging

Daniel Dočekal of news server Lupa.cz, which reports on the Czech internet, has written that the attacks illustrate the fact that very few people protect their Facebook accounts with strong passwords. "Even fewer protect them with two-phase (two-factor) authorization, even though it’s very easy and effective," Dočekal wrote on Lupa.cz. 

It is also possible to set up verification by receiving an SMS text message on a mobile device for Gmail. In addition to activating protection that way, Dočekal says it is important to follow several important rules for online behavior.

For example, if you are logging in to your accounts through a computer you cannot completely trust, you should never choose the option of remaining connected to those accounts while browsing other pages, which means it is important to log out of your e-mail and Facebook when you stop using them. It is also very important to set up strong passwords and you should also definitely never save your passwords in the browser.

"Your passwords should be long, but they mainly should combine letters, numbers, and ideally some sort of symbol such as an underscore. It’s even better if you make use of both lower-case and upper-case letters, provided you can remember the password (it could be, for example, something like "Mix_3478a" – that would give you a decent amount of assurance no one will be able to break it using a so-called ‘dictionary’ hack)," Dočekal wrote on Lupa.cz.