Is it possible to enter someone's Facebook account, without knowing or changing the password?

[Dane Herrill]

The thing that happened to me was next: While I was sitting in a lecture hall at the university, on my Facebook timeline appeared a status update that I never wrote, and friend requests were sent to five people I never knew. It's obvious that someone accessed my account. But the strange thing was that I didn't lose the access to my account, my password was not changed. If someone wanted to hack me and used the "forgotten password" option, he would eventually get the possibility of typing a new password, but not of finding the old one out. Also, I'm absolutely sure that my password was impossible to guess, because it was a senseless code with big and small letters and numbers.

One of the possibilities is that on some public PC I left my Facebook account logged in, and someone used it to have fun. Another possibility is that someone took my iPhone while I was in the lecture hall (and on iPhone I was logged in to Facebook).

I want to know, is there any third possibility? Is there any other way for someone to access my account without changing my password? I'm actually asking because I want to know if it's possible that the person who did it read some conversations in my Facebook inbox. Thanks for the answer in advance!

[Dillon]

It can be a hacker but it is really difficult and can get you kicked out of Facebook if your caught
Or you just left it on somewhere and someone decided to mess with you.

[Inquiring]

1. Make sure you didn't actually stay logged in on someone else's device.

2. Make sure that if you click "save password" on your computer/laptop that nobody has access to it. When you save your password there is a record within the browser. For example in firefox go to "firefox (top left) > options > security > saved passwords > view passwords." If you do this you can see all your saved passwords. Someone could have done this process on your computer when you were not around.

3. Make sure you use a secure network. Network protocol analyzers like wireshark can intercept the packets of data being sent to and from your computer. If you log into facebook when someone is running wireshark AND on the same network as you, they intercept your positive log in cookie from your browser. They can just throw this into a cookie manager and gain access to your account without changing the password. Bottom line: although they have to be pretty smart, dont risk being on the same network as someone you don't like/know unless you have to.

4. Try logging in with your credentials on your computer. If you use an app within a mobile device or tablet you may be decieved. The password to your account very well could have been changed without your knowledge. when a mobile application logs into something like facebook, twitter, netflix etc. it only uses your credentials the first time. Every other time you "auto logon" within the app is isn't retesting your credentials, but merely retaining the positive log in status that you originally had. Essentially someone could change your facebook password and you could still access it just like normal from an iphone but not from your computer.

I hope that made sense to you, that is really the only way I see your situation being possible. If it is not one of the solutions I listed then there is probably a very experienced and dangerous hacker on the loose. Good luck!