Deceased Man’s Facebook Account Hijacked

Susan Cunningham and her four children had been trying to deactivate the facebook profile of deceased Michael P. Marshalsea for several weeks. Recently, Facebook deactivated the profile for the family, ending a traumatic situation that had been tormenting them for months. A hacker had retrieved access to the facebook page and was liking different companies and changing all of the information on the page. The daughters in the family talked about how disturbing it was for them to see these changes and how it re-opened old wounds.

The family only kept his facebook account open after his death so people could write condolence messages or share memories of him, but two months ago, his page was hacked. Experts speculate that there was a financial motive for the hacker to like all of these random companies in order to boost traffic to the company websites. Thanks to Facebok, the account is now frozen to properly memorialize Michael Marshalsea.

See Richard Weir, Family: Hacker Desecrated Dead Dad’s Facebook Page, Boston Herald.com, Feb. 18, 2012.