Random people automatically appearing on my Facebook friends list

By Japlabot
in Smart Home, Network & Security

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Grand Master

Japlabot

Posted
Posted

I keep a very tight control of who I accept on Facebook, I only have names on Facebook who I know and careful who I accept.

Once in a while I go through my friends list, find a few names I don't recognise, it has been suspicious that something is going on, change my password and move on.

This time I found 20 names. When I check on their names it says that their account is deactivated (ALL OF THEM DEACTIVATED).

I KNOW that I did not send or accept friend requests from these people.

I ONLY use Facebook on my own devices (Android with lookout security, iPad with 5.1.1, Laptop running Windows 8 (Built in Security Essentials).

I use a UNIQUE email address ONLY for Facebook logins and notfiications which has been changed since last time I checked through my friends list.

I NEVER use Facebook to authenticate to websites

The ONLY Apps which have approval are Spotify & Instagram.

All other games, apps, etc. have has their permissions revoked since last time I checked through my friends list. I keep a very tight leash on my Facebook "privacy" now.

There was a time, a long long time ago (about 3 years ago), I DID send lots of Friend requests because at low point my my life where I was in a ****ty job and playing Mafia Wars a lot for lack of better things to be doing, including one time I sent friend requests in bulk by email address. Since about 2 years ago, I deleted EVERYONE who I added via. Mafia Wars, and also went into the friend request pending by email section (I don't think they have this page anymore) and DELETED everyone with friend requests outstanding who didn't accept me at the time.

I don't know if this is still a having a ripple effect from the Mafia Wars invites I sent out long ago and maybe only being accepted now. I do have email notifications turned on for when someone wants to Add me as a friend, and for when someone accepts my friend request, and I am not getting such emails to confirm this to be the case.

Maybe this is some other security issue (Hijack control of Facebook from a malicious webpage?) Maybe there is an ongoing security issue? Maybe this is a Facebook bug?

Has anyone heard or seen this before?

Attached some screenshots of examples.

post-18532-0-24129900-1340458437_thumb.p

post-18532-0-21008700-1340458267.png

Mentor

Colin McGregor

Posted
Posted

Yeah it happened to me too. They weren't random people though they were people i actually had friended at one point but long since deleted.

The weird thing though is before this happened i got an email saying my account was accessed from somewhere i've never logged in before (ended up being in cuba lol), of course i went to facebook.com to verify and not click in the email and sure enough. I changed my password and the people showed up. I just deleted then and moved on.

Grand Master

game_over

Posted
Posted

My partner always gets messages saying "... has accepted your friend request" .. but they are people she has not added, whats stranger is that they are local to us, people from our town... whats even stranger is that she is not from this town and doesn't know anyone to add, not that i know who they are either..

Proficient

srbeen

Posted
Posted

I seems to think the accounts been hijacked and added these random friends to 'spy' on what you do/say for market research... maybe its in correlation with the flame virus the US and Israel wrote. Maybe with the universal login thing facebook does now theres some bugs they gotta fix...

Grand Master

+InsaneNutter MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

Facebook has recently changed how you view your friends list, you can now see people you had as friends who have since deactivated your account.

So the names you are seeing were on your friends list years ago, you probably dont remember though as you said you added loads of random people.

I have noticed too that friends you had who properly deleted there account (and not not just deactivated it) comments will stay on your pictures and stuff. Facebook then appears to assign there id to a new user so you will then see comments on your pictures from totally random people in other countries.

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