Q: My devices have been hacked. What do I do?

I have an unlocked iphone originally from Australia, but its now with me living in Toronto, Canada - and got the same hacked message mid-morning. So this tells me its not Aussie service providers, and only icloud related. I changed my password in icloud, but now can't log back in to turn off 'Find my iphone' before doing a restore. Its asking me to setup icloud on my device. Anyone have this issue too?

That is total rubbish we were on the phone to Apple this morning at 2:30. They knew about it then... so someone is pulling your leg if they said they didn't know about it.

I tried following that advice but iTunes tells me I need to turn off "Find my iPad" first, on the iPad, which I obviously can't do.

I am in Melbourne, Australia and My 2 iPhones and 2 iPads sounded an alarm this morning at 1am one after another waking up the family and since they went off one after another I was not happy zooming around the house to turn them off.  I too had a message of demand for $50 from "Oleg Pliss" with a phone number of 5841293189 and an email address of helplock@gmx.com .  I have a password on all items and when I went in the message disappeared and there does not appear, at this stage, to be any affect on my iPads or iPhones.  Bit disappointed that Apple have not said anything at this stage but then again they may still be asleep in the USA! 

Message was edited by: Anthony Warren

Anthony Warren wrote:

 

  Bit disappointed that Apple have not said anything at this stage but then again they may still be asleep in the USA! 

Until they get it figured out how it's been breached they'll likely not say anything.

http://viewnews.com.au/apple-devices-hacked-overnight-459402/

My phone didn't have a passcode at the time (it now does!!) so I did the long winded way.

All other devices which had a passcode were ok once rebooted.

Note that you need to be on desktop or notebook to use icloud fix... I was advised that you can't do this from a portable device

But shouldn't they at least acknowledge it? I'm sure they know about it (well by now anyway) so saying they are working on it would be better than letting us try and fix it for ourselves with no information.

Maybe not, but I'm just annoyed.

"I too had a message of demand for $50 from "Oleg Pliss" with a phone number of 5841293189 and an email address of helplock@gmx.com .  I have a password on all items and when I went in the message disappeared and there does not appear, at this stage, to be any affect on my iPads or iPhones.  Bit disappointed that Apple have not said anything at this stage but then again they may still be asleep in the USA! "

Likely they aren't saying anything because your phone was not hacked.

It was a flash SMS which does not show up in your messaging app.

They were trying to scare you into going to their website do they can infect your computer with virus/malware.

Have spoken to Apple, need to ensure devices are not in lost mode and change your Apple ID password. They hacked into Apple somehow but all they did was wake us up early!

We had one iPhone and two iPads affected.  We did not have a passcode on any of them unfortunately.  I could turn off lost mode for the iPhone but not the iPads.  The computer would not recognise the iPhone as it still said it was in lost mode with passcode even though it showed differently on find my iphone.  I was able to delete the iPhone through Find my iPhone, the computer would then recognise the device and I restored from backup.  For the iPads I had to turn them both off, then plug into the relevant computer, turned them back on pressing the home key and it would then let me restore them as it bypassed the passcode lock.  Hope this helps someone.  I also reset my icloud password before I started this process.

We were also woken up at 3:30am by all devices (except our old iPad1) blaring like a fire alarm.  I completely powered down everything except my wife's iPhone5 (which I couldn't find, as it turned out to be in the car).  This morning all devices are fine, except my wife's iPhone5, which has had the passcode changed.  All our devices already had passcodes.

The message on our devices was the same as those already posted.

This morning we've changed the AppleID password we use on all those devices (we use the one account), and have also turned off "Find my iPhone".   However, my wife is still unable to get into her phone despite the provided instructions.  She tried restoring it via iTunes on our laptop, but it wanted the passcode first.  I then wiped the phone via the Find my iPhone website from my work desktop, and that seemed to work, but when she tries to restore it, it still seems to want the passcode first (so she says).

Any ideas?

If you actually read the history of this case this is not a mere flash SMS but an iCloud hack that has used 'Find my iPhone' to lock users out of their own phones.  This should not be so easily dismissed as this is huge and worrying news that iCloud has been compromised in some way and Apple should at least acknowledge they are investigating and highlight the fix that is in place.  Until they do they are leaving most of their AU and NZ users in the dark to pay the money because they are scared and don't know otherwise know what to do.

If you actually read the history of this case this is not a mere flash SMS but an iCloud hack that has used 'Find my iPhone' to lock users out of their own phones.

Exactly.  Any devices unprotected by existing passcodes and linked to compromised iCloud accounts have been locked, with a demand for $ in poor english sent via the Find My Iphone message function.  It's not sms.

Just got off the phone from Apple - trying to get the AppleID password changed as we're now locked out having flunked the security questions.  She couldn't help, and was giving away nothing re this issue other than a resigned sigh of affirmation, when put to her she was up for a long day.

I had the same problem originally. This is what I was told to do (and did) over the phone with applecare support.

Turn off your phone.

Plug your cable into the computer and have itunes up (do not plug into the phone yet)

Press and hold the home key on your off phone (I did mine for about 10 seconds). If nothing happens, plug in the cable into your phone (keep holding the home key)

What you want to see come up is the picture of itunes and cable on the front of the phone

Your itunes should then recognise the phone as an unidentified phone

Select restore factory settings (it should down load some software) ~15 mins and automatically install

The phone should go through some of the standard reset screens (usually black screen with apple icon and loading bar)

You will be prompted to restore the phone.... do this from itunes not the phone

Throughout this process you must not let the phone or computer go into sleep mode.... and don't disconnect.

I had the same issue with the lock screen but it was related to sim card once I did the restore.

I had to set the erase from icloud website, but that didn't originally work as it requires connection to the internet for it to apply, hence plugging it into the computer.

I accidentally started setting up my phone via the phone and got stuck on the sim card lock screen so had to do it from scratch again and this time via itunes and all good. Hope that helps

For those struggling to change icloud password - got to iforgot.apple.com and enter you ID in this way.  Then you can choose to reset it via email