iPad Pro churned through 800gb of Wi-Fi data in a single day

“Browsing and apps” seems to be the Cox version of “stuff”. Not at all descriptive.

iPadOS doesn’t have a network activity monitor. Closes is the battery power monitor. Settings > Battery. Check that, and see where all the power was going.

If this is your own Wi-Fi, your router (from Cox?) might have more data about the network activity, but whether and how that can be checked depends entirely on the router.

And if this is your Wi-Fi router, are there other systems connected, or just this iPad Pro?

Kirkkh2 wrote:

So Cox does let you monitor what device is utilizing the data, so I was able to see that it was a (mostly sleeping) iPad that used the data. I’m in touch with Cox they’re investigating whether it was a mistake on their end, sighting how unusual/irregular the data amount was. If it was just me—and the iPad did churn through the equivalent of 100 hours of 4k video in a single day—I would hope that constitutes a security concern for Apple. Whether it’s a malicious browser tab or app.

Some apps and some browser tabs can use lots of resources.

Check the power usage data on the iPad Pro.

Moving a terabyte of data would chew through lots of power.

Sometimes monitoring tools have been known to be wrong, too.

Have you attempted to reset your iPad and keep checking to make sure it isn’t using unexplainable amounts of usage? If you have past backups from a backup would make it easier. but if the virus or malware is in an app somehow despite Apple’s testing before an app is released. If the problem continues you might want to call Apple support so they can run diagnostics on your device: Official Apple Support

That is very unusual Kirkkh2, it seems as though you may have found yourself upon a website or app that is your Wi-Fi for something else such as to install a large malware Package. It could be nothing but I would recommend resetting your iPad completely as a safety precaution.

Kastaspella wrote:

It’s not necessarily that apple’s security failed they can’t block websites you go to because safari is not a web browser google and duck duck go are safari can just go to websites. When you look something up on safari it defaults to google but you can change the default in settings. If safari was a web browser that didn’t rely on google Apple would have been able to alert you of the virus. Cox said browsing and apps as MrHoffman said it’s cox’s way of saying stuff. It was most likely a virus in a website because that is the most susceptible way to get a virus to a device. The internet is a dangerous place as I’m sure you know. the internet serves as a way to get a virus to a device because no one can verify a website because that would take approximately 23.8 million years. Next time try to steer away from web pages you find suspicious Apple devices are still susceptible to viruses. That said no one can avoid a virus very easily so this isn’t on you.

There is very little malware around for iPadOS. While an iPad is absolutely not immune to malware, and there does exist malware for iPad, what malware is around has been targeted, based on available information. (If you are an investigative journalist, a political dissident, rich, with access to sensitive or classified data, senior in government or politics or other entities, or other such person, the security calculations here can shift.)

In addition to the ‘safe browsing” stuff (and which isn’t all that applicable to whatever is going on here), Google search has unfortunately also been a viable way to get malware in recent times, due to their ongoing search results mess. They have had lots of trouble with higher-ranked malware websites in recent times, placing above the actual developer app websites. But that particular search results mess is less of an issue with iPadOS, as the apps are necessarily acquired from the app store and are not loaded from the mess that are recent Google search results.

Attribution to malware—and almost certainly not a “virus”—is premature. And pushing most of a terabyte of data around would show evidence in the iPad power logs. I’d hope the Wi-Fi router has better data than ‘stuff”, too.

For the future the app DataMan can track your Wi-Fi usage on your phone.

Apple is serious a about security but they do not block you from clicking on links you find in safari or anywhere else it wasn’t an app because an app must be confirmed before it can be added to the App Store

It’s not necessarily that apple’s security failed they can’t block websites you go to because safari is not a web browser google and duck duck go are safari can just go to websites. When you look something up on safari it defaults to google but you can change the default in settings. If safari was a web browser that didn’t rely on google Apple would have been able to alert you of the virus. Cox said browsing and apps as MrHoffman said it’s cox’s way of saying stuff. It was most likely a virus in a website because that is the most susceptible way to get a virus to a device. The internet is a dangerous place as I’m sure you know. the internet serves as a way to get a virus to a device because no one can verify a website because that would take approximately 23.8 million years. Next time try to steer away from web pages you find suspicious Apple devices are still susceptible to viruses. That said no one can avoid a virus very easily so this isn’t on you.

I’m sorry, that is quite inaccurate. Safari is a web browser. Going to websites is what browsers do. All browsers.

And an iPhone cannot get a virus from visiting a website.

Safari does not “default” to Google. If you do a search it will use Google, or whatever search engine you set as your default search engine. But using google as a search engine is not the same as “using” google. Safari connects to websites on its own, using Apple’s Webkit. In fact, ALL browsers that you install on an iPhone are required to use Webkit “under the hood”.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

I’m sorry, that is quite inaccurate. Safari is a web browser. Going to websites is what browsers do. All browsers.

And an iPhone cannot get a virus from visiting a website.

Safari does not “default” to Google. If you do a search it will use Google, or whatever search engine you set as your default search engine. But using google as a search engine is not the same as “using” google. Safari connects to websites on its own, using Apple’s Webkit. In fact, ALL browsers that you install on an iPhone are required to use Webkit “under the hood”.

I’m sorry but if you read what I said again you’ll see that I said that safari just goes to websites and that it defaults to google for searching stuff up. I’m sorry for the confusion I didn’t make it very obvious in the text.