My iPhone 12 max pro continues to get hacked

Hello ~ Take a look here:

If you think your Apple ID has been compromised - Apple ...

Recognize and avoid phishing messages, phony support calls

No one here is not saying it is impossible to “hack” an iPhone but it is highly improbable if you have two factor authentication and update your iPhone regularly. I guard my Apple ID and never give out any information at all. If you understand a bit more about Pegasus you will come to understand how complicated and expensive it would be to use it against everyday people and to what end? If you are someone of status,great wealth,head of state, reporter or other government officials then perhaps you would be targeted. One of the many reasons that I use many Apple devices is for their concern and actions in the security realm. As for the code…take your device in to Apple and have it sent to their engineers to have it analyzed…we are fellow users and even to specialists the code means nothing when posting here. I have never in all the years of Apple use had a security problem.

~Katana-San~

If you think your AppleID has been compromised:

If you think your Apple ID has been compromised - Apple Support

If you think your Wi-Fi is "infected" simply buy a new Wi-Fi router or obtain a new one from your ISP, problem solved.

What you describe isn't possible unless your AppleID has been compromised, and can be completely bypassed simply by creating a new one, so:

1) Buy and install a new Wi-Fi router with a new WPA3 password

2) Create and use a new AppleID, using a new email address if you're concerned

3) Erase and reset your phone to factory defaults and set it up fresh from defaults

You will lose all your old data, but it sounds like you believe it to be of dubious safety at this point anyway.

Your phone has not been hacked.

Please stop trying to interpret things you don't understand.

If you are having a problem or experiencing symptoms that led you to believe your phone was hacked, please explain what's wrong and we can help you troubleshoot. Insisting you've been "hacked" because you don't understand what you see in the analytics is not productive.

“and other trusted parties you share your cloud with., however what if one of those trusted others is the one doing the hacking or it’s your teen going to unsafe websites or opening spam? It all uploads to the cloud., “

That is not hacking. That is the persons own fault for sharing their private Apple ID and password. Apple states it multiple places to not share your information and everything should have their own separate Apple ID.

Restore your phone to factory settings using your computer (NOT Erase All Content & Settings). After that the ONLY personal information that would be useful to them is your Apple ID and password. If you change the password and make it a good one, and add 2 factor authentication, no one can access your phone or iCloud data. No other personal information about you is useful unless you choose a poor password.

And if you don’t believe me then get rid of your iPhone and don’t get any smartphone. Get a cheap flip phone, and replace it and its phone number every few weeks. (That’s called getting “burner” phones).

If you look around here we get several post domestic turmoil posts of the nature of the other party is either some type of IT genius or they have friends who are IT geniuses who have used techniques to get into iPhones, iClouds, etc. In reality if they did do this it is because of their close proximity to the person and social engineering. Unless your significant others friends had the financial resources to purchase Pegasus software from NSO there is not other software currently in use that can hack your iPhone or iCloud account unless you have gone without using a passcode, reused the same password, or gave this information away. If you have a strong iPhone passcode, and strong Apple ID password, you are using 2 factor authorization and don't reuse passwords no one is going to hack you. If you do believe your iPhone is hacked you should have your attorney retain a computer forensics specialist and have them check your iPhone to get evidence of the hacking.

Its not the actual phone but your iCloud or iTunes account. Apple needs to realize that hacking has grown to include estranged spouses, partners, etc., in addition., Apple’s Developer program opens up Pandora’s box for exploits., etc.

I’m in the middle of a high conflict divorce that has been on-going for the past year… Everything related to my case has been stored on my cloud (emails, documents, etc).

Even though my estranged spouse has no real IT experience, he has associates that are overly qualified in the field., giving them access to my iCloud or iTunes account is like giving a child the key to a candy store.

Apps backed up to your cloud are easy targets as well., Just because they’re on the App Store doesn’t mean they provide the same security as an app from Apple.

A telltale sign your cloud has been compromised is to look at your advanced webdata on your device., any unusual websites that you haven’t visited are the result of whom ever your sharing your cloud account with or has gotten access to it.

Apple clearly states that your web browser history is shared across devices in your cloud unless you use private browsing.

Passwords and keychain on your device are also backed up to your cloud. Passwords can be easily changed for other apps, etc., without receiving the two factor notification if it’s not supported by the developer.

Photo sharing across devices via iCloud can be easily embedded with malware and go under Apple’s radar.

Contacts backed up to your iCloud can be altered or manipulated.

Red flags:

Contact photo is blank in your iMessage/text messages, this means your device no longer recognizes that contact - something has changed.

Calls to your contact outbound/inbound are labeled “unknown” underneath their name or the number isn’t verified.

A hidden malware link embedded in the comments section of your contact which Apple doesn’t show due to their strict privacy guidelines.

Ive been documenting my iPhone/cloud security issues for over a year, numerous Apple cases., etc., the examples I have provided are from my personal experiences, security issues with my devices and Apple accounts.

Hope this helps .

Irishgal68 wrote:

I have to agree that yes iPhones can be hacked., I think Apple needs to re-evaluate iClouds security.

Hacking an iPhone and hacking iCloud are two very different things. Hacking an iPhone is exceedingly difficult and, for all practical purposes, requires physical access to the phone. It almost never happens. Hacking iCloud is easier, especially if the end-user doesn't set up two-factor authentication.

Itunes isn’t the safest either -

iTunes is software that runs on Windows and older Macs. I'm not sure what you think is unsafe about it.

Crash Reporter is a method that is invoked any time an app crashes, it has nothing to do with being hacked.

CrashReporter Key:  An anonymized per-device identifier. Two reports from the same device contain identical values. This identifier is reset upon erasing the device.

Apple Developer Documentation: Examining the Fields in a Crash Report

The Avast warnings usually are seen when you are using open WiFi like a public hot spot; what network are you connected to?

The reason you are finding Apple, Verizon, AT&T, and geek squad so unhelpful is because what you're describing simply isn't happening.

One or more of your online accounts very well may have been compromised, but your iPhone was not "hacked" and it certainly wasn't hacked remotely.

The more time and energy you waste going down this rabbit hole, the less likely you are to solve whatever the 'actual' problem is.

you're trying to read code from your phone that even average technicians at Apple cannot decipher. This code would be fed into a system to be read accurately.

Unless you have jailbroken your phone, you have NOT been hacked and you have no clue what the code is you posted.

For those that say it can’t happen, I know better. It’s rare but when my entire network was taken control of in late 2020, I even had Apple telling me I needed to contact the police locally. When locked out of my iPad and losing control, the tech walked me through doing a fresh install over the network while waiting for the last countdown for my iPad. She was surprised how fast the fresh install went. She had me shut down my computer so we could then address the iPad. While in the middle of the iPad fresh install my closed, shut down computer started on its own sounding the boot up chime loudly. Surprising us both my system had been reinstalled and set up with my previous accounts. It was then we both knew I wasn’t paranoid seeing issues that weren’t there. She still stated that it had to be my internet provider compromised but several attempts later with various support nothing worked. My phone was compromised as well. I replaced everything right down to the modem. I was able to save the system in chunks by creating a bootable system on a SD card that I had copied the current system to. Then did a fresh install to a second card allowing me to treat the system drive as an external drive changing the permissions on everything assigning my self as Admin again and stripping all privileges for anyone else to read or write. I still had to copy everything in chunks so it wouldn’t be a working system and set it away from the house in a faraday bag with everything else to avoid any possible way it could infect my new system. I have a router that I only grant permission for one device at a time to connect to the network and the others have cell connections dividing what each is used for to avoid connections. Unfortunately my new MacBook Pro just found 4000 Trojan files two weeks ago. Thankfully my other devices seem to remain unaffected. I do have everything locked down on them though including only allowing cellular connection when actively using the app. My 2FA is on a different device then the ones that I use the apps on, to prevent any possible man in the middle attack with access to my messages. Not having them have any permission to play nice with other devices or be on the network active together it seems to be holding up. I also stripped all Siri learning, deleted all preinstall setups in the Accessibility area and turned of predictive settings. Hopefully I will be able to get my new computer straightened out because I started the reinstall before I lost control of all Admin permissions. I work with all my documents on removable drives that are backed up regularly and contained in a dmg then zip for second hand back up storage. I also separate my files by category to avoid losing everything again. I had to go back to backup drives over 10 yrs old. Passwords, contacts, files, email all wiped before I could back it up. You don’t realize how much you really depend on your devices until they are gone along with everything. I made the mistake of not backing it up externally because I had the cloud. Two persona files were found that weren’t able to be accessed. My system had been set up to need three different authorizations to allow admin control. I had never heard of this type of setup but the hacker was one and the other two acted as the other authorization accounts. My cloud was not really organized and to really delete all files even hidden ones I had to use the web sign in on a different device. Things were contaminated. Files showed that I had never seen before. Custom JS scripts for shortcuts to inject script into my web browser along with scripts for apps I didn’t even know were installed but found in the core system files that were developer app tools and network scanners. So I erased everything after backing up what I could to get a pro to go through everything maybe one day. Changed my password and created a fresh account for my old phone number and got a second phone to use as my new number with my old email. Overkill I’m sure, do I feel safe, no never again. What I do feel is more in control and that allows me to sleep at night along with shutting off my modem and router when not in use. On the plus side my battery seems to last much longer on my phone then anyone else I know!

So you got a brand new phone with a different carrier, new and never used email address which you made your Apple ID and you believe someone still accessed your device remotely?

I’m sorry you’re this far down the rabbit hole but no one got access unless the person you suspect had physical access to the device.

Note Apple has recently released a new document:

Personal Safety User Guide

What you need to know about device and data access when your personal safety is at risk

Personal Safety User Guide - Apple Support

Additionally, you could also change ISPs, and do all communication via a VPN.

Apple has a great page about securing your device and connection here:

Apple Platform Security - Apple Support