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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.

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  • Do you have a password for that desktop computer? Change it too.
    – user13695
    Aug 14, 2017 at 19:00

2 Answers 2

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Your iPhone may show up in the list as an iPad. Mine does. It shows up in a different state because that is where your cellular provider has its nearest hub.

Try this

  1. Open Facebook on your PC and navigate to the "Where you're logged in page."
  2. Take note of which devices are showing "active"
  3. Sign in and out of Facebook on your phone, refreshing the page on your PC, to see if the status changes.
  4. If it changes, then you've been chasing a ghost.
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  • Try geolocating the IP using a service such as https://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip-demo. If the location matches up with your house but not your stepson's, then it could be someone else, it could be one of your devices is set to report itself as an iPad, or Facebook is incorrectly identifying one of your devices as an iPad.
  • Do you use an Apple computer or iPhone? It could be that you're signed into an Apple account on both your personal device and on an iPad, and it's set to sync your passwords. Change your Apple account password to log out any other devices. (And then change the rest of your passwords after that.)
  • Your computer could have a keylogger. Someone could put a keylogger on your computer easily if they were over and using your computer for a short time. You could try changing your facebook password on your phone, and then don't enter your password onto your computer (and so don't use your account on your computer) for a while, and see if the iPad accesses stop during that time. If it's this case, then make sure you have antivirus software on your computer enabled. It might be able to remove a keylogger, but if it doesn't then you might want to reinstall your operating system to clean it of any possible viruses.
  • Someone could have access to your email account and be using it to reset your Facebook account's password (though I think you would lose access to your account and notice if this were the case). Change your password, and then check to make sure no unfamiliar forwarding rules are set up. (Someone with access to your account could set your account to forward all of the emails it receives to another address.)
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  • Thank you for the advice. I used that website and it shows the IP address is located one state over from where I live. A place that is commutable, but definitely not my house. I had compared the IP address that shows for my phone and computer previously, and this is definitely a completely separate IP.
    – iiimwood
    Aug 14, 2017 at 18:54
  • I used that website and it shows the IP address is located one state over from where I live. I had compared the IP address that shows for my phone and computer previously, and this is definitely a completely separate IP. I do not use an Apple computer, but I do use an iPhone. Never used an iPad. It's not syncing that way. Regardless, I will now change my Apple account password! If needed I will proceed to option 3. I receive notifications when I changed password, and I have an auto-forward rule in place. I do not see other rules running when I check that section.
    – iiimwood
    Aug 14, 2017 at 19:02

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