I have the Internet abilities of a doorknob. Please keep that in mind.
Through a random series of events, I discovered the Privacy portion of my Facebook account, and saw that an iPad user was accessing my account, and had done so in the very recent hours before. My password was 16 characters long, and a combination of letters and numbers! I selected the option to log out of ALL devices and immediately changed my password. Then I logged back into my cell phone app and desktop using the new Facebook password, and went about my business. This happened just under two weeks ago.
It was disconcerting because I only know one person who has an iPad... my stepson. He is with us the majority of the time, but does have an iPad at his mother's house. That iPad does not come to our house, and as I am the one who picks him up and drops him off, I would know if it went with him.
The new password was 17 characters, and again a combination of letters and numbers. Neither the old password or the new one was anything even remotely related to common info (names/DOBs/nicknames), and was pretty much a random phrase. I checked my Facebook privacy settings again in the next few days, and no more unusual devices popped up.
However, I just checked again, and my Facebook was again accessed by an iPad within 12 hours of my stepson arriving at his mother's house. This time, I saw that I can pull the IP address that accessed, and I tried to look that up too. Looks like one other person reported this IP address for abuse about six months ago.
My stepson does not have a cell phone or a tablet at our home... and I only access Facebook through my desktop computer (password protected because I work from home and have sensitive info on it), or from my cell phone (also password protected). How could this be happening? None of our kids use my desktop computer OR my cell phone. I know that my stepson's mother has a brother who considers himself computer savvy and I've heard stories of him hacking things for the heck of it. But I have never stepped foot into her house or even left my vehicle.. And she does not come to our home or even into our driveway in order to access my devices at home. Could something be just silently scanning anything in range, say running from her apartment, and somehow not only finding my Facebook, but also grabbing the password?
It concerns me mostly because I also have my work email account on my phone, and hacking that would allow someone access to vital information on hundreds of strangers. As I said, I have again changed the password and also selected the option to log out of all devices.
Sorry if these are completely stupid questions, I'm just concerned. There is nothing untoward in my personal life, I'd expect anyone poking around to be quite bored, so I'm not concerned that she (or anyone) is gathering some ammo to ruin our lives.. but it is still very disturbing.
Please let me know if there is a way to prevent this from recurring, and how to report the IP address (I found a website, but it wants me to categorize the type of abuse and I don't understand the definitions!). I should also note, I checked my gmail accounts (I have 3 that I use, all linked to the same cell phone and desktop that has Facebook) and none of them show any unknown devices logged in, which I find odd that something would target Facebook but not the equally accessible email accounts. Thank you.