How to recover hacked Apple Account?

Same here, no apple device, just feeling uncomfortable with someone using my account wrongfully. Hope you didn't have any credit card connected with it or no cloud information on there. Have you received any invoices or mails about other actions with your account?

Mine was hacked by chinese people so that I cannot even try to answer the questions xD

Thanks for your response. I dont have any apple devices active, simply received emails about the change of password, security questions and date of birth this morning all within one minute.

What could be the worst thing to happen in this case? Apple support says there's nothing I can do to stop this person from accessing or using my private information which is quite disturbing. Hopefully they won't do no harm anymore.

Hi. I was in a very similar situation this weekend.

I have a old account that I forgot I had with a very stupid password.. I'm not that person anymore ahah.

I've received a email from apple saying that my billing information was changed.

I can't say for sure if the security questions were changed or I can't remember that, but still I was not able to retrieve them. And was not able to login to apple account (web) because I didn't have the answers ( I was also not able to change them, "not enough information")

Still if the hacker did not added a a phone as double factor authentication you may still be able to retrieve control of your account.

Apple Support was no help at all because they said the only way to get control of the account was to setup double factor authentication, at 1st was not able to do it because the region was changed to mainland China and I don't have any Chinese number ..

The call was ended with the woman saying the account was lost forever...

I was not happy with my email and information to be in the wrong hands.. with 4days searching for a way to solve it i managed to do the following.

Reseted your password via your email. (Immediately after receiving the apple email)

Using an iPhone from someone else I logged in to media and purchases apple account.. (all in Chinese now, I had to use google translator)

Navigate to region tab and select my country. (Not easy at all since it was on Chinese)

You will need to setup payment information (please use a virtual credit card and cancel it after it, to be sure the hacker can't get any useful of it)

I entered all fake info (street address, postal code, city)...

I was able it to change the region to my country of origin

After that I logged out and logged in again and when I was asked to activate the 2f authentication I entered my phone number and managed to get access to the account again.

I went to privacy.apple.com and submitted the account for permanent delection.

I'm sorry for my English, hope this can help someonelse

Unfortunately that means you are out of luck. Apple is strict with their account security and the use is in full control of their Apple ID only.

Your option now is to submit proof of ownership of the phone to Apple to request they remove the Apple ID from the phone do you can start as new Apple ID. How to remove Activation Lock - Apple Support

It’s not Apple being stubborn nor not helping just because you don’t agree with it. It’s their literal security and privacy position so they offer what options and steps are available.

Security and your Apple ID - Apple Support

Privacy - Apple

SUPPORTDONTHELP wrote:

I'm in a similar situation this morning and web support are completely unable to assist.

Which means that Apple ID is not yours, if it ever was.

Folks attempting to socially-engineer their way into another’s Apple ID is all too common, too.

If you are unable to differentiate yourself as the account owner from somebody seeking to socially engineer access into an Apple ID, you’re not going to regain access.

Loss of control of an Apple ID is catastrophic.

actually this account was made decade ago and I never use it. I have another account. Just suddenly earlier this month I got notification this account was changed and today they made a lot of purchases. I don't have any payment linked to it either.

I'm not sure what they are trying to achieve though. I don't have any way to close the account and I guess I only can simply move on. But it would be nice if I can delete this account.

I'm in a similar situation this morning and web support are completely unable to assist. Surely the best policy for all would be to lock the account until ownership is proven? At this point I'm just gonna have to blitz the security questions daily to try and keep them locked out. Hoping that any cards associated with it are long expired.

I have the same problem, the security question is changed to chinese language. My request was to delete the account and apple support wasn't able to help me here. Now that it is happening with many people, Apple should do something about it. This is the least I can expect from Apple :/

stolen-account wrote:

I have the same problem, the security question is changed to chinese language. My request was to delete the account and apple support wasn't able to help me here. Now that it is happening with many people, Apple should do something about it. This is the least I can expect from Apple :/

I’d not expect much help accessing an account that is effectively if not fundamentally not mine. Apple needs to differentiate me from somebody trying to socially engineer (con) access into (their?) (my?) account. Identity which isn’t always easy to determine, particularly after a catastrophic security breach, and given some folks routinely try to talk their way into to others’ accounts.

If this Apple Account take-over follows the usual pattern, the person that created the Apple Account chose to not enable two-factor authentication or another security mechanism, and either chose to re-use a password, or got phished. Which too often then leads to easier account take-over.

In addition to those features, Apple also provides password security recommendations, which will flag many compromised and problematic passwords, for those people that use Keychain.

At best, enabling two-factor authentication might wrest control back here, but more than likely this account is gone to its new owner and a new Apple Account needed, and the devices will need their purchase receipts to transfer to the new Apple Account. Yes, this is a huge mess.

For those reading this thread that do not already have two-factor authentication enabled, or that are re-using passwords, or both, please go fix that right now. Gaining control over these accounts (using credential stuffing, or using phishing) can be all too easy! And these take-overs are entirely automated! This automation is why “it is happening with many people”, too!

yuricrona wrote:

Same issue with same security question language. +1

Confirm your trusted devices and trusted telephone numbers are correct for your Apple ID at https://appleid.apple.com/ and then enable two-factor authentication, if that was not already enabled, as enabling that (after two weeks) eliminates the security questions.

I’d also change the Apple ID password, and other passwords, as this Apple ID has been compromised.

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

Password compromises and phishing and weak passwords are fairly commonly exposed unfortunately, and two-factor authentication provides one last chance to block account access.

If you can’t change your password and can’t enable two-factor authentication, you’ve lost control of this Apple ID, you’re headed for another Apple ID.

If this Apple ID was ever yours, of course. Folks making these reports can be miscreants seeking to gain access to somebody else’s Apple ID, and nobody here can tell if this request is legitimate, or if this is another example of social engineering. Which is also why not having two-factor enabled and then losing control ends badly.

yuricrona wrote:

actually this account was made decade ago and I never use it. I have another account. Just suddenly earlier this month I got notification this account was changed and today they made a lot of purchases. I don't have any payment linked to it either.

I'm not sure what they are trying to achieve though. I don't have any way to close the account and I guess I only can simply move on. But it would be nice if I can delete this account.

It’s probably not your Apple ID account anymore. But if you still have some control, see above.

Deactivation and deletion, if you still have control:

Understand and control the personal information that you store with Apple - Apple Support

If that Apple ID account used for Activation Lock anywhere, remove that lock before deleting. Failure to remove locked devices before Apple ID deletion bricks the devices absent sufficiently-convincing proof of ownership.

In general, enable two-factor authentication on all Apple IDs, verify your trusted devices and trusted telephone numbers, and don’t re-use passwords.