Activation Lock engaged without being prompted

This happened to me tonight on my Ipad Air. Resetting did nothing, as did shutting down and rebooting. I had to enter my Apple ID pw, sign back in(worried), change my Apple ID pw and delete cookies/browsing history. This afternoon I got two Facebook Messenger messages--the same stock one--from different friends about being an angel in their lives and how I'd better forward this to fourteen other people or my karma would be ruined...blah, blah, blah. I politely declined forwarding them, concerned about passing around embedded crap like viruses. Could this have anything to do with my issue just hours later? Some kind of bug brought in...or am I way off base?

Let me throw another wrench into this issue ...

I just returned home after almost 12 hours, during which my iPad was in airplane mode and I was only running two apps, neither of which was a browser. When I arrived home, I turned airplane mode off and the FIRST thing that happened was the notification that Activation Lock had been enabled. Ok, let me correct that ... that was the SECOND thing. The first thing was the polylingual "Hello" screen as if I had just performed an update, which I hadn't. Then, I was prompted to sign in to unlock my iPad. It was also removed as a trusted device. This seems to have all been through Apple, because I needed to use two step verification in order to sign in to Apple afterward.

Something is glitchy in the matrix. 😐

It is quite disconcerting that the "Apple Recommended" answer bolsters what seems to be misinformation (although I will concede that the post/issue first appeared back in June and perhaps this is dated info). Of course you should take the precautions against browser phishing, but it seems in this case this is indeed Apple's Activation Lock screen erroneously appearing (Double clicking the Home button does not in my case show the app switcher, nor does powering on/off resolve anything.) For piece of mind though, it would be nice to see a pointer back to a documented Apple issue (or does Apple even do that?)

I managed to re-download iOS to the iPad using iTunes even though I had the correct version of iOS which was allegedly fixed) and then changed my Apple ID login to a new password. After that the activation screen accepted my new Apple ID password.

It's strange because it would not accept my previous, then current Apple ID password.

A quick google search shows that this is definitely not a phishing scam and caused many problems during the release of 9.3.x and has also occurred before during iOS 8. The bug "bricked" quite a few phones and iPads.

I'm also shocked that the reference to a phishing scam was an Apple recommended answer. I'm also surprised that the user of the recommended answer has a high site rating and gave the answer without doing any research and blindly believing that this could not possibly be a bug with iOS. I find that these forums are often full of rating warriors that are more concerned with playing the ratings game rather than given correct and informative advice. It's a shame as many people without good computer skills come to these forums thinking that the advice is directly from Apple, when 99% of the time it's not.

I do not "blindly believe" anything, and such scams are indeed common and wide spread. You may have indeed encountered a bug and not such a scam, but that neither makes your bug common, nor the use of such scams uncommon. A "quick google" search will also turn up abundant evidence the earth is actually flat, space aliens are real and amongst us now, Elvis is alive, and the free masons control the collective governments of much of the entire planet.

And why anyone would think advice here comes from Apple Corp. Support is beyond me. When you sign up to join these forums, it is clearly spelled out that this is a forum of fellow users of Apple products, voluntarily offering to help others. People's posts here are their own, not Apple's, and the advice and information given is volunteered based on people's own knowledge and experience. It's fine if you don't find it useful. But not finding it personally suited to your taste is hardly an excuse for being presumptuous and insulting.

Michael, I do believe jason1973's reply was overly harsh. I think the caution you expressed was spot on. Perhaps jason1973 is venting a bit of frustration that I also have encountered on these forums.

But there is still the question... where does the "Apple Recommended" answer rating come from if not Apple? I don't take any exception to your answer. But the "Apple Recommended" designation does seem questionable.

Many Apple product users that encounter problems aren't members of these forums, they Google their issue and are presented with multiple threads to posts like this which appear to be Apple technical support forums, but are actually user community forums.

~90% of these forums are pretty much junk posts, reposts or people complaining about a problem. Very few are actually helpful. Apple does not seem to care that this is the case and seem to prefer a hands off attitude to this type of community support. In my experience you delve into these forums at your own risk. Having a little technical knowledge helps you separate the wheat from the chaff but if you're not technically minded advice on this forum can often be a hindrance to getting your problem solved.

In my opinion, your phishing scam answer was given without previous knowledge of the problem at hand. I appreciate that you were trying to help somebody, but in this case you didn't have the solution and were scaremongering about a possible phishing attack on the user. You stated problem was definitely not an issue with iOS, without knowledge that it was a previous problem with iOS 8 and had occurred on the release of iOS 9.3.5.

If you're upset by my assessment, may I suggest that in future you refrain from answering a question unless you are certain of giving a proper solution or are asking for further information to help you diagnose the problem.

I'm not upset by your assessment, just pointing out it's personal and derogatory nature. I have not been upset by what anybody thinks or says about me on the internet since my first forays onto it in the 1990's (to paraphrase a southern dismissive saying "you're nothing and nobody to me and mine").

And while you're entitled to your opinion, I did indeed give a useful and informative response. If you are so good with google searches, you would know that such scams are indeed commonplace and are a prime means by which people end up having their AppleID, and all its associated Apple service accounts, compromised. Such browser pop-ups have indeed caused a lot of problems for posters in these forums. I have the distinct impression you have not even bothered to read the initial OP posts in this thread.

Regardless, this is now a pointless and off topic discourse with nothing further to be said.

Add me to the list of users who experienced a spontaneous activation lock. This was NOT some sort of browser hijack; I was playing a paid, ad-free game I've had for years at the time it occurred. Restarting the iPad (Air) returned me to the exact same screen, which indicated that "I" had used "find my iPhone" to locate my iPad. I, of course, had not ... as I was actually using my iPad for at least 30 minutes prior, right up to the point where the activation screen prompted me for my AppleID and password.

This has to be some sort of bug in iOS (I'm currently running 10.0.2), or someone has discovered a vulnerability that allows them to activate "Find my iPhone" on selected accounts.

I took the precaution of changing my AppleID password to something even more obscure (20 characters, random lower and upper case letters, numbers and punctuation). Fortunately I have password manager to remember it for me. I also continue to use 2 factor authentication.

I had a similar experience last night. I was on my wife's ipad and was trying to show her a news article on CNN.com and when I was zooming in and out, all of a sudden I receive this activation lock on my screen with "HOLA" and other foreign languages on it. It won't let you do anything without typing in your apple ID password (the apple ID was correct). Without typing in my password, I powered off the Ipad and powered it back on with the "HOLA" message again, and it wanted to know my wifi connection. I type it in, and then it immediately wanted to know my apple password. I could not do anything else without typing it in, so I did. I noticed my settings window open up and another window appeared in front of it and wanted to sync my itunes information (not quite sure...i just know it wanted to sync something). I pressed "not now" and the screen went dark for a few seconds, came back on and everything looked normal.

I immediately talked to an apple tech who was suspicious and advised me to change my password and security questions. I took it one step further and changed my apple ID. They also advised calling the bank about my credit card info. The only other thing I can remember is that there were probably 5-6 other tabs open on the browser. I'm not sure what websites she was going to, but we ended up clearing the browser history and deleting the safari internet files as well. Changed the cooke setting to "current website only".

Still not sure if it was a fluke or phishing scam. What do you guys think?

Just faced the same problem.

"Hello" screen (and Activation Lock screen) appeared while browser was active.

IIRC there was a message popup that my iPad is locked and needs an activation.

I checked iPad serial# on icloud.com/activationlock and device was indeed locked.

Than I rebooted the device, entered Apple ID at lock screen and installed iOS 10.1.1 (iPad was on 10.1 or 10.0.x, I believe).

Seems to work as normal. Other devices reported that my Apple ID was used on "new" iPad.

Just one note - when you checked the serial number and it said the device was locked, that is what it will say for any device that you have signed into iCloud with Find My iPhone turned on. Whether or not you are having to go through the Activation process or not, when you have Find My iPhone turned on, your device is Locked.

Wasn't sure if I read what you had right, so wanted to provide clarification about what you would see.

Best of luck,

GB

The dreaded activation lock screen happened this am with an iPad Air2.

Interestingly occurred at same time prompting for IOS 10.1.1 upgrade.

I know sometimes with upgrades that before I verify and install, I have small subset of new functionality. Just having file on device causes this leak. Wondering if something in upgrade file prompted lock.

Either way you're right. Its an IOS glitch.

The same thing just happened to me but it's not a pop-up and you can't close it with the double click of the home button and even shutting down & restarting your device doesn't get rid of it. It happened to me whilst browsing on Safari but other than the fact that your phone suddenly says it needs you to enter your AppleID & password for no apparent reason everything else about it looks like a genuine activate my iPhone screen.

The Activation Lock only engages when someone tries to erase the device, turn off Find My iPhone on the device, or to reactivate and use your device after it has been erased.

Since you were on the internet when this happened, and not doing any of the three actions above, the prompt is not from a legitimate source.

You may have to go to the Find My iPhone app in iCloud.com and erase the device if resetting doesn't clear the screen.

Have you tried double-clicking the Home button to see if you can then slide up on the Safari thumbnail to close it?

Cheers,

GB