Ipad Hacked - I watched somebody go into my contacts and browse around

I'm not sure what you're looking at. Looking at WJBurr's profile, he has only posted on this topic. Searching for his username on all the pages of this topic only turns up the following post:

Re: Ipad Hacked - I watched somebody go into my contacts and browse around

That post does not contain any kind of link to - or even reference to - a specific article.

So, I can't comment on that article, because I haven't seen it. However, I will say that when it comes to security issues with Apple devices, I don't have a lot of respect for McAfee. They just don't seem to get it most of the time. I tested McAfee against 188 Mac malware samples earlier this month, and it only detected 99 of them. 😐

Why are posts deleted unless it's from somebody off the topic?

Posts will get deleted for a variety of reasons... rudeness or rants, speculation about future Apple products, discussion of Apple policies, etc. See the Apple Support Communities Terms of Use for information about what is prohibited.

One thing that is most definitely not allowed, but is not specifically mentioned in the terms, is any discussion of jailbreaking (beyond saying something like "don't jailbreak, it's bad!"). Any post that seems to be advocating for or giving instructions for jailbreaking is promptly removed.

If you ever feel like a post has been removed in error, you can appeal that decision in the Using Apple Support Communities forum.

Thomas,

Evidently WJBurr's post containing the link was deleted, but the article offered very little in way of evidence of the possibility of this, and at least in my opinion was spurious at best for a number of reasons:

1. It basically described a discussion given by someone from MCaffee at a conference (strike one - I have no faith in the validity of any statements on iOS security coming from them).
2. The article (again, not posted by Mcaffee, but a second hand account, but does include a link to MCafee's white paper) is over a year and a half old. But we have heard nothing of this anywhere else?
3. It is obviously describing a much older version of iOS. If this vulnerability ever existed, it has more than likely long since been patched.

Message was edited by: James Ward4

Dean,

Your not losing your mind,

I too read the article from a link in this thread on the 28th that is no longer a part of this thread,

but here is the link from my browser history.

http://www.securityweek.com/mcafee-details-remote-ipad-hack-mobile-security-demo nstration

But that article is from a year ago and what they found has been long since plugged.

I don't disagree that it has more than likely been addressed, I do disagree with the all out asssumption that it is not possible because it is the almighty Apple and they can do no wrong attitude, Many hacks involve a small proportion of the users and get remedied before it hits grand scale but that does not mean that it did not happen.

If that makes you feel better glad your post here worked.

Sounds like you've probably hit the nail on the head, James. Thanks for chiming in.

Unfortunately, some security outfits are very good at posting very incomplete or misleading information. Just to provide one recent example, the head of Kaspersky recently tweeted a statement about a research paper that was just plain false. See:

Misinformation about “acoustical infections”

Moral of the story: just because some security company or "news" organization posts something online, that doesn't make it true. Critical thinking skills are... well, critical. 😉

Thanks for re-posting that. I notice that the vulnerability in question was patched almost a year before that article was posted by SecurityWeek:

http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2011//Jul/msg00005.html

I also notice it was patched months before McAfee presented any findings. This vulnerability was discovered by security researchers, who revealed it to Apple. As far as I am aware, it was never exploited in the wild.

Now, as to your statement about an "almighty Apple and they can do no wrong attitude," clearly you have not understood the point being made here. There is a very significant difference between saying that it is impossible for such a hack to exist and saying that there are no currently known remote access hacks.

If you wish to speculate on a theoretical targeted attack going on right now that all these folks are suffering from, but somehow nobody has heard of, then I can't stop you. I can't even say that that is impossible, though it is extremely unlikely. However, that claim does a serious disservice to folks who need a solution, not a source of unfounded fear.

the ipad is a computer it runs off software written by people who make mistakes and may have orther than good will 1 blooth tooth enable some one could exploit thart wifi with the wrong tools that can be explotited in all likleyhood a program you installed was wriiten so the programer could gain acess to your ipad there has been several apps written for the android tablets that turn out to have back doors written into them at first the program behave normally then at some point the apps exploits are turned on look for some securtiy software for the ipad then do a google search to make sure it is legeit also never put any personal information on your tablet or your computer

I bought my mother an iPad 2 16gb earlier this year, she has the latest version of iOS running on it. Today she says something similar to what people have said here, it seemed like the ipad was being controlled by someone else, not random activity from a dirty screen, but intentional actions by a person. It was also taking photos without her knowledge.

I'm waiting on more details from her, but the blanket statement "ipad/iphone cannot be hacked or controlled by another person" seems somewhat suspicious. It's technology, it's not impermeable. And based on the number of reports of similar experiences like this, I have a hard time believing every instance is from a dirty screen, or a fluke of hardware failure. Hardware failure that results in searches on names and correctly typed queries?

I just received a call from my mother. The exact same scenario as above. This just began happening within the last week.

Her iPad was making randome Facetime calls, random websites being visited. Her background image was changed.

This is definitely not the result of dirty screens.

Apple, what's going on here?

Hi!

I am sure that an app is responsible for it. Which iOS Version do you have? Did you try to update to the newest version?

Try to find the app who is responsible for it.

<Link Edited By Host>

Make sure the Apple ID hasn't been hacked or shared.

not to long ago a reporter had his entire life stolen from his apple account phone ipad make sure your passwords are extremly strong if you have something to loose 2, a report came out that it is becomeing easy to become infected while visitng a benine website just the other day a security flaw was exposed in safri and ios7 and be carful of the apps you use an andriod app became malware after a update this is the problem just because apple verifies an app there is nothing to stop the programer from changing its primary function the only true way to be safe is not to have anything personal on your computer device includeing facebook