iPhone 6 randomly asked for phone activation

just happened to me with iPhone 4s and 9.3.5. Did not need computer to reactivate. Just my SIM card and Apple creds associated with the phone .... though, it may have needed the wireless network as well because that was my default screen. VERY SPOOKY!

Hello, this just happened to me, although my phone is much older (iPhone 4s) and I received an e-mail that said my phone had been removed from my trusted devices, which prompted the activation (I did not remove my phone from my trusted devices). I've been on iOS 9.3.1 for quite some time now (I've been ignoring the prompts to update to latest iOS because my phone's old). I was just wondering if it's possible for this to happen even when I've already been on iOS 9.3.1 for quite some time already (I noticed that the article you shared refers to when you've just recently installed iOS 9.3. I just wanted to check if it was a bug / part of the bug and that my phone and Apple ID haven't been hacked.

Hi. Actually right now my phone did the same thing. I don't remember what IOS I have but I know it's older. I was on snapchat and my phone was open then it suddenly went black and opened up the same screens you saw requesting and activation lock. I still don't know if I should put it in because I'm worried my phone got hacked. What did you do?

My phone restarted when I took it off the charge and the same thing happened to me. Thanks to another post, I found out that by connecting my iPhone to a windows computer I was able to import all photos and videos. Which is great because I had not backed up my phone in a year... I have now learned my lesson. Strangely enough when I did login everything was still there. But I did have to sign back in to ever single app on my phone.

Just make sure you connect to a windows computer BEFORE you go through the activation lock and enter your email and password. If you do it after it seems like it's 50/50 on whether your phone will have been wiped or not.

With how many people have been reporting this problem I can't believe apple has not found a solution.

Have you updated to 9.3.1 yet? If not try updating through iTunes to see if it resolves the Activation Required issue. If not you may have to use Recovery Mode.

I suspect that the Twitter screenshot is a phishing attempt and I recommend not clicking on the link and specially not providing any personal information. iPhones cannot be hacked (unless they are jailbroken and I doubt you have done that). However, you can get malicious texts and Safari pop ups try to phish info form the user. Would not hurt to do the following:

Reset Safari. Close Safari completely from the multitasking window by double clicking the Home button and swiping up the Safari preview pane until it disappears from the screen. You may have to look for the Safari pane by scrawling to the left. Then go to Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data. Then do a forced restart. Hold down the Home and Wake/Sleep buttons at the same time for about 15-20 seconds until the Apple logo appears.

Nutter173 wrote:

... do you have an idea what would make it suddenly need activation?

Yes. The activation issue was indeed a bug with 9.3. It caused problems generally with older devices but I have read reports of newer devices acting similarly. Here is an Apple article about it.

If you can't activate your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch after installing iOS 9.3 - Apple Support

I have never seen a report of an iPhone being hacked or having a virus unless they were jailbroken. So I would not worry about that issue and the same with AirDrop.

Your Wi-Fi router can be hacked but this is unlikely if it is password protected. Did you change the default password on the router? A hacked router would allow a crook in close proximity to access your network. The info you provided above does not lead me to suspect a hacked router but if in doubt, you could reflash the firmware of the router and use a different password. Are any of your other devices having issues?

Phishing attempts are common and the only risk is entering personal information of the phishing links. If you did not respond you should be fine, especially after resetting Safari as you did above.

My pleasure...

The exact same thing has just happened to me as well but I'm not sure whether to activate incase I lose all my photos, did you still have everything you had before on your phone afterwards?

This just happened to me on 10.0.2 while I was using my phone to read in Safari. I unplugged my phone from the wall charger and immediately got a reactivation message that I couldn't get around. I reactivated and it all seems fine so far, knock on wood, except that all of my text messages appear to be gone, which is really annoying. I hope this doesn't happen again.

I've had it happen to me multiple times in past 2 weeks or so it has deleted all my saved passwords pictures and texts sometimes I can get it to reactivate right away sometimes it takes forever... every time it deletes my Bluetooth connected devices making me set that up deletes all passwords from all apps. It's annoying and hassle and happens randomly and multiple times to me I'm almost to point of buying new iPhone