My devices have been hacked. What do I do?

My guess is they are (rightly) focused on diagnostics and damage control, rather than communication via all channels. Plus, sadly, there are legal and liability issues they will be hitting in terms of releaseing information.

What will be interesting to see is how they eventually respond to what appears to be a serious breach, as to level of transparency and enhancements to security.

No, I'm very protective of it, but that said I was also a bit slack in that a) it was very old - same password for years, and b) as stated earlier it was the same password I'd used for eBay which I didn't even realize until today.

This is such a massive shock at least to me as an iphone user. I favor mac because of security. This is an eye opener and Apple needs to address this. As someone who called Apple support and the first thing that happened was they tried to charge me $20 to talk to someone about how to fix my device that they allowed to get hacked is troubling to say the least.

deskokat wrote:

Andrew J, it IS a fair question to ask - and goodness knows anything that's common to all of us needs examining. I DO share my ID - with my 13 year old son. But he doesn't have the password - it's a way of having parental control to key in the password myself and ok his activities. I think he's too young to have his own just yet. I've asked him if he's shared it with anyone - but that's a definite no. Wouldn't be much point without the Password anyway...

I understand, and my question was in no way to infer any lack of security measures, just trying to narrow down all the variables so we can find where this has come from.

I do tell my clients to set up separate accounts for their children, but keep the passwords to themselves to keep control, then when the children mature, they can have control themselves, without losing anything.

One of my clients shared an Apple ID with her two young boys. Did that cause some grief when she started using her iPad for work. Taking pictures that ended up on her kids ipods. In the end, I set up 3 separate accounts, once the older boy ended up getting imessages from girls at high school.

Tigerlily75 wrote:

No, I'm very protective of it, but that said I was also a bit slack in that a) it was very old - same password for years, and b) as stated earlier it was the same password I'd used for eBay which I didn't even realize until today.

I think you may be on to something there. I had the ebay issue as well, and had the same password.

Tigerlily75 wrote:

No, I'm very protective of it, but that said I was also a bit slack in that a) it was very old - same password for years, and b) as stated earlier it was the same password I'd used for eBay which I didn't even realize until today.

It may or may not be relevent, but by narrowing down all the possiblities, we can find the cause, and end this sooner rather than later.

For those collecting common threads. I am in Australia, I don't use Testra (I use Optus for phone and TPG for internet). I never use a VPN. I have never used Ebay and don't have an account there. And I bought my phone directly from Apple.

Loonbeam1 wrote:

As far as she knows, my wife did not sign up for Ebay....

It's a process of elimination, so we can probably discount eBay for now. There has to be a common thread to this problem, as the hacker would only use a one stop method of harvesting account details. If we can find out where the messages originated, it may give a clue to who.

Stefarn wrote:

Thanks Andrew

I was able to use Recovery Mode and update to my last Back up - My devices that already had Passcodes set were Ok. Now learnt my lesson to always have a passcode set.

Great news. If you haven't already, change your Apple ID password to something unique, and use it for that single purpose.

Good luck.

I know it's unlikely, but the other account I had with the same details as my Apple ID was my Catch of the Day account. I tried to find whether the company that owns Catch of the Day has any international links, but couldn't. I'll keep thinking of others.

My wife and I haven't been hacked (in Australia, 2 iPhones, an iPad and an iPod). We have passcode set on our devices. Find my iDevice is on. We don't share Apple IDs. I've received phishing emails purporting to be from my mail provider, Fastmail, recently, but I think that's coincidental. I recognised them for what they were. My eBay password was (I write "was" because I changed it last week) different to my Apple ID password.
I've looked at my iCloud settings. The only major app which iCloud is disabled for is Mail. I use Thunderbird on my (Mac) desktops, my wife uses a web interface on hers.

I don't use a VPN.

I wonder if an app provider is the source? We don't have games on our devices.

This ramble is just to add to the detective data.

According to news sites around the world reporting on this attack. The exploit uses the “Find My iPhone” feature, which allows users to remotely lock their iPhones and iPads via iCloud in case the devices are lost or stolen.

Like others have said, Apple just booted me out of my AppleID right then and made me change my password again. Thinking up all these unique and strong passwords is exhausting! No wonder hackers have a field day.

Thanks for the reply, Andrew J, but I started off by writing that our devices have NOT been compromised. Then I rambled on in the hope that someone would see a common thread (a negative thread in our case) to those devices that are borked.

I can't remember now - has anyone posted anything about jailbreaking? Our (unharmed) devices aren't jailbroken, bog standard latest iOS.

Foaming Draught wrote:

Thanks for the reply, Andrew J, but I started off by writing that our devices have NOT been compromised. Then I rambled on in the hope that someone would see a common thread (a negative thread in our case) to those devices that are borked.

I can't remember now - has anyone posted anything about jailbreaking? Our (unharmed) devices aren't jailbroken, bog standard latest iOS.

Got blind sided there, I though you were commenting because you were hacked. Skipping text to get to the details is an old speed reading habit of mine.

Jailbreaking hasn't been a common thread, as others have stated on other forums.

It seems like the accounts have been harvested via an outside source where user details have been intercepted. Because it hasn't affected a great multitude, one can assume there is a minor connection between those affected.

My theory is a user account details used to log into other web services, is identical to their Apple ID. It's almost impossible for a snotty nosed hacker like this one, being able to access Apples servers. These details have been intercepted in some way via a third party server.