Facebook chat hacked?

[hypernova]

Long story short:  My wife sincerely believes that an ex has somehow hacked:  her account, my daughter's, my daughter's rat (she's an 11yo teenager, so...yeah), and my wife's friend's account whom she communicates with via both facebook and skype on occasion (skype isn't an issue).

I've already checked the machines with autorun.  There are no dubious entries.  No other computers are connected to our wireless router.

On her own account, she has been changing the password approximately every month.  She says these things have happened:

1.  Chat histories of each account have mysteriously disappeared.  I've already directed her to the facebook page showing that chat histories do disappear.

2.  Pictures have disappeared.

3.  Then they've reappeared, in incorrect locations (according to her friend).

4.  Friends list disappeared.

5.  Various other small things.

I have a few questions:

If he has used a brute-force method to hack into these accounts, what is a typical timeframe for cracking a password, assuming that a person uses words and numbers (random words)?  A day?  Week?  More?

Is it realistic that a person can crack a password that is constantly changing that quickly (month to month)?

Quite frankly, I'm at my wits end regarding this.  I'm a skeptic through and through, and this situation is no exception.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

edit:  There is a recent history of him being seen around locally.  So her concerns could be valid.

[SavannahLion]

If he has used a brute-force method to hack into these accounts, what is a typical timeframe for cracking a password, assuming that a person uses words and numbers (random words)?  A day?  Week?  More?

Is it realistic that a person can crack a password that is constantly changing that quickly (month to month)?

Depends on the vector or vulnerability.

Quite frankly, I'm at my wits end regarding this.  I'm a skeptic through and through, and this situation is no exception.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

You just looked at autorun or did you actually run any of the virus/malware/trojan suites to find something? Some trojans attach themselves to other apps, such as windows login. You need a proper scanner to root them out.

[AtomSmasher]

This is unlikely, but since you're afraid he's installed something on your comp, another option he has is an external device such as a keyboard logger.  It's a device that can be connected on the back of the comp and stores or sends (depending on the device) all keystrokes made on the computer.  Check the back of the computer for any unusual devices plugged into it (often between the keyboard and the computer).  Also, if you're afraid of brute force hacking, then just change your password to something crazy like rt_jUG4?pr!7Z6q&MJ2    brute force method of hacking can not crack that in any feasible amount of time.

Is this guy some sort of computer expert?  Do you have reason to believe he's capable of hacking so many accounts?  And if he is hacking the accounts, why is he doing such inane things like moving pictures around?

My guess is Facebook is having some glitches and your wife is just over-reacting.

[Ed_McCarron]

My guess is Facebook is having some glitches and your wife is just over-reacting.

Indeed, Facebook has it's off days where I think things are going awol... But they pop back up later.

[eds1275]

I think it's possible that someone has hacked facebook itself recently. I have had several "friends" as of late, who do not know each other, all use the chat feature begging me to try this iq test by clicking on the link. I of course do not click on the link.

If my wife [well fiance for now] had a creepy ex roaming the neighborhood, I would end that sucka if I caught him being a creep.

[hypernova]

If he has used a brute-force method to hack into these accounts, what is a typical timeframe for cracking a password, assuming that a person uses words and numbers (random words)?  A day?  Week?  More?

Is it realistic that a person can crack a password that is constantly changing that quickly (month to month)?

Depends on the vector or vulnerability.

Quite frankly, I'm at my wits end regarding this.  I'm a skeptic through and through, and this situation is no exception.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

You just looked at autorun or did you actually run any of the virus/malware/trojan suites to find something? Some trojans attach themselves to other apps, such as windows login. You need a proper scanner to root them out.

I'm unfamiliar with the terms vector and vulnerability.  Let's say maybe one password is kettletofrog203.  How long would you suspect that would take?

AVG is on the machine, updated relatively frequently.  Nothing is ever found.

This is unlikely, but since you're afraid he's installed something on your comp, another option he has is an external device such as a keyboard logger.  It's a device that can be connected on the back of the comp and stores or sends (depending on the device) all keystrokes made on the computer.  Check the back of the computer for any unusual devices plugged into it (often between the keyboard and the computer).  Also, if you're afraid of brute force hacking, then just change your password to something crazy like rt_jUG4?pr!7Z6q&MJ2    brute force method of hacking can not crack that in any feasible amount of time.

Is this guy some sort of computer expert?  Do you have reason to believe he's capable of hacking so many accounts?  And if he is hacking the accounts, why is he doing such inane things like moving pictures around?

My guess is Facebook is having some glitches and your wife is just over-reacting.

There is definitely nothing external.  He would need to break into my house to do that.  On the off chance that's happened somehow, I periodically have to check things in and around it for other purposes, and never found anything.

Inane crap?  Believe me man, you are speaking to the choir on that one!!!  I've raised that point more than once.

He *could* be an expert on computers.  He bragged about it a 15 or so years ago when my wife dated him, but at the time she believed it was all bravado.

Here's some more to the story as to what little evidence which does bolster her argument that it might be him:  She, her friend, and my daughter have youtube accounts, with their own playlists.  My daughter has also made some lame-o videos.  Now apparently firefox has the ability to disable the video autoload feature of a channel/playlist/whatever.  (I'm not a youtube expert.)  Supposedly, youtube can track the location of people who VIEW your videos/playlists/whatever.  This much is true, as I've seen the graphs of locations of your views.  However, if the video isn't autoloaded, then nothing is recorded.  Thus channel views go up, but there's no way to tell who/what location is doing it.  These youtube accounts are supposedly set to private.  Once again, I'm no youtube expert, so I don't know what is and isn't possible regarding privacy settings within youtube.

What say you now?  I'd really just love to put her paranoia to rest, but it's hard to do so right now.

edit:  In addition, the site mylife.com has all sorts of information available, and apparently her name is looked up often.

[missioncontrol]

are they connecting via unsecured wireless? He could be sniffing packets...

[hypernova]

No.  It is secured.  WPA-PSK2 encryption.

[Gray_Area]

Facebook blows anyway....

[Bootay]

edit:  In addition, the site mylife.com has all sorts of information available, and apparently her name is looked up often.

As for the above statement, it is a scam. I get these messages all the time too. "Someone was searching for you on mylife.com, please register to find out who"... This is simply a phishing scam to get your information. And no one is really searching for you. There is another FB app like that too, I forget what it is called but it will keep telling you that one of your friends answered some personal questions about you. "Register to find out what they said"...again, BS Phishing crap. So I would ignore those messages.

As for the rest, I think you guys are just being overly paranoid over nothing. It sounds more like (and forgive me I don't mean to insult) a case of people that don't know enough about computers using a computer. I think that if someone hacked your account or your computer they would do much more than periodically erase your history and hide your pictures and friends list. I would lean more towards FB being buggy sometimes (because it is) and/or some type of malware on the computer. I wouldn't fully trust AVG BTW and just having an anti-virus installed doesn't mean you can't still have a virus/malware of some sort. AVG doesn't know about every malware out there until users submit them and they are analyzed, therefore you can still get infected. Plus not all anti-virus programs are 100%...actually most are not.

Plus, if you have kids/teens using the computer they tend to mess things up and not say anything because they don't want to get in trouble or sometimes just plain not know they screwed something up. If you guys are this paranoid, I would highly suggest a format and reinstall of the computer just to eliminate it being a problem with the software. (ie Windows/browsers) ...I doubt he is hacking the router based on the information supplied.

[Bootay]

Oh wait sorry...for some reason I thought there was mention of AVG. So if you don't use AVG replace your Anti-Virus name with AVG. LOL

[hypernova]

It sounds more like (and forgive me I don't mean to insult) a case of people that don't know enough about computers using a computer. I think that if someone hacked your account or your computer they would do much more than periodically erase your history and hide your pictures and friends list.

This is pretty much my feelings towards the subject, but I'm trying to placate her.  And more or less get her to move on.  It's like she's actively looking for "coincidences" herself.  She's talking to me about it right now, and I just want to scream, because her terminology usage is...difficult to understand.  She's not proficient with computers at all.

Sometimes it's like talking to a wall.  I want some sort of hard proof that she can't ignore, but even if I did get some, it still probably wouldn't be good enough.

Yeah, elaborate conspiracy theories... or... your wife or daughter isn't being honest.

Without going into too much detail, this is how this mess started.  She wasn't being unfaithful, and stopped before it got anywhere close to even meeting him.  His current wife is...a cow basically, so I know he would've if given the chance.

[hypernova]

Now she says that during May, when this fiasco first started, that she DID get a message from facebook saying that her account had been compromised (this was the time when everything was basically wiped), and that they would restore her account to the way it was in a few days.  I remember her saying something back then about this, but I had since forgotten.

Of course, she hasn't had another email since then.

[ChadTower]

She wasn't being unfaithful, and stopped before it got anywhere

I hate when my wife insists on not being unfaithful and fails to get anywhere with it.

[Gray_Area]

She wasn't being unfaithful, and stopped before it got anywhere

I hate when my wife insists on not being unfaithful and fails to get anywhere with it.

....yes, Watson, a strange piece of information. (Ah, can anyone tell what I'm watching?)

[hypernova]

Humorously enough, our internet has been down since Thursday.  (I'm piggybacking off a weak unsecured connection from somewhere near my house now.)  It's been a very nice four days with absolutely zero talk about it.  Hasn't come up yet.

[Samstag]

Are you aware that there's a firefox plugin to hijack facebook sessions made over unsecured wireless?

[hypernova]

Nice.  Doesn't matter, as:
a.  She uses IE
b.  It's secure WPA-PSK2
c.  She hasn't used the internet since it's been down.  Only I have to do things that I needed.  Mostly update my Wii stuff.

Interwebs is back online in our house.  Not full speed (they need to change something on their end), but it's not the volatile speed it was before.  Nice and steady.