My iMessage has been hacked

What I want to know is how they got our passwords. It makes me feel insecure about Apple. However, I hear that iOS10 keeps the hackers away.

I believe this was the day I was hacked as well, but I'm not entirely sure...

I believe the safest route is to just change everything entirely and start fresh, but if you don't wish to lose everything you have, then change your password and set up two-step verification.

I want to start fresh anyway, so it is a pretty convenient time for this to happen to me. I'm not as worried about it as I was then.

Yes - I have as well. This appears to been a larger hack into iMessage from a Chinese machine ("iMac 27" named “8gepc的Mac (5)")

As Linc Davis stated change your password immediately.

I just had this happen to me today. I received an email from Apple saying someone signed on to iCloud with my Apple ID. I changed my password right away, but I'm worried that they may have got a hold of my information.

Don't make a new Apple ID if you have any purchases from the iTunes/App/iBooks stores. Purchases can't be transferred from one account to another so if you want to retain access to that content, you'd have to keep the original Apple ID around anyway. So why set up more hassle and confusion by now having two Apple IDs? Hackers need two piece of information to log into your account, your email and your password. Obviously change your password. You can confuse them even more by changing the email address associated with your Apple ID. You can only do this if the email used on your Apple ID is not an Apple provided address (i.e. not an iCloud.com, me.com or mac.com email). Adding two factor authentication beefs it up even more because now they need 3 things, your email address, password and access to one of your trusted devices. As mentioned above, you must secure your account before ever thinking about turning on two-factor. And after major changes to your account, there is a 3 day holding period before you can enable two-factor.

OF course it's a security risk! Changing your passcode won't totally fix it because once your iCloud is penetrated, so are the apps associated with that, like Facebook recognized devices, and current sessions need to be checked, also mail, etc. And your keychain is exposed.

Apple can do whatever they want to, if you talk to the right person. Also, just assume they have access to everything you have. Since everything is cloud based everything is interconnected. I highly advise you to go to an Apple Store or contact an Apple engineer. Your calls and your desktops can be re-directed to appear legit when they are not.