veritylikestea
Level 1
(1 points)
Q: My devices have been hacked. What do I do?
i was using my ipad a short while ago when suddenly it locked itself, and was askiwhich I'd never previously set up. I went to check my phone and there was a message on the screen (it's still there) saying that my device(s) had been hacked by 'Oleg Pliss' and he/she/they demanded $100 USD/EUR (sent by paypal to lock404(at)hotmail.com) to return them to me.
I have no idea how this has happened. I am not aware of having been exposed to malware or anything else, although i did recently purchase some new apps - perhaps one of these has something to do with it? I don't know. I am not sure what avenue has been used to reach my devices - I'm about to use my husband's laptop to check through some of my accounts (gmail, etc) and see if there is any clue there.
Has this happened to anyone else? What can or should I do? Many thanks
iPhone 5
georz
Level 1
(10 points)
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
