H. Flynn Designs targeted by hackers

According to Nebraska’s Small Business Economic Profile, there are 167,678 small businesses in Nebraska. Lincoln has the most small local businesses. One of these was recently a victim of hacking.

Hayley Reed is the founder of H. FLYNN Designs. It is based here in Lincoln at Southpointe Pavilions. Reed makes clothing designs focused on the local aspects of Nebraska and Lincoln, and her work supports many local schools and fundraisers.

Reed’s main marketing efforts are done through her platform on Facebook. Often, she makes posts about which of her products are on sale. As of Feb. 22, her business account had over 20,000 followers. But marketing on Facebook can have its downsides, even though it’s the most popular social media platform. On a daily basis, 160,000 Facebook accounts are hacked and Reed’s business account was one of them.

Reed had spent eight years building her brand and platform. But on Feb. 20, her business account was hacked. The first attack changed her profile picture to an ISIS member holding their flag. Throughout the next few days, the hackers posted more hurtful things including racial and homophobic slurs and more ISIS-related posts.

While all this happened, Reed was working hard to get access to her account. She attempted to get in contact with companies that specialize in getting accounts back. She also tried contacting every support team that Facebook has. No one was able to help.

Reed still kept in touch with her fanbase and patrons, who supported her and her company. They helped find a way to get the account back to Reed. With her large number of followers spamming Facebook’s support teams with requests for help, Facebook finally looked into her case.

Around 9:00 p.m. on Feb. 22, Reed regained access to her account. She started healing the connections damaged by the hateful posts. In her first real Facebook post, she expressed gratitude toward everyone who helped her through the hack and the effect it had on her business: “If you’ve followed my Instagram stories about my hacking journey the last few days- THANK YOU!!”

By TJ Pittenger