I think someone installed a spy app on my iPad

Not really. The only real assurance you have no maliscous software (on any computer) would be to erase all content and setting or restore as new in iTunes. Then set up the device manually again (not from a backup as that may just restore the malicious content).

Then set set a new screen lock passcode and stop sharing it with others.

As long as you allow people to have physical unlocked access to any of your computing devices outside of your direct supervision, you leave yourself open to someone either doing something maliciously, or just being stupid with your device and compromising it accidentally.

To me, secretively installing any malicious software in any system is essentially “hacking”. You don’t necessarily have to modify the operating system on any platform to install, and bury or hide, spyware, bots, root kits, keyboard loggers, etc, but I still think of that as “hacking“. If you have or gain root or admin access, you can cleverly install all manner of things, and hide your tracks very well, invisible to all but the most technically knowledgeable.

And that of course is at the crux of the OP’s quandary. If someone knows what they are doing (and the owner/user does not) you can never be sure whether something was there, or not. Files can be hidden, processes disguised, logs altered, etc. Unless you are very knowledgeable of the operating system itself, you could not know what had been done, or not done.

If you really suspect something, the only sure thing to do is wipe everything completely, and set up anew from trusted sources only.

And then take basic security steps (like not sharing passwords!) to keep others out! 😉

They don't even need to "hack" it in terms of needing to do special underhanded code modification. Because you have left open access to the device to a certain group of people they can just install software without needing to do anything special along the lines of hacking. Now I don't even know if such software exists for iOS because the whole environment strokes me as a lot more controlled than the operating system running on computers. Maybe this is a case of being a bit paranoid? If you are really worried about this then you will need to erase your iPad and set it up again, this time with a password only you know.

If you have let others use your iPad anything is possible, sharing your password is an extremely bad idea, you should change to a new password and not share it with anyone.

No it is not unless someone has had it physically in their hands, screen unlocked and with time to connect it to a computer and hack it.

Theoretically yes. Anyone with physical access to a computing device can hack it. That’s the whole point of access passwords - if you don’t share them with people, nobody can get into your device without your knowledge.

Tdb1962 wrote:

I read in a search one day if anyone even know’s your phone number they can install an app on your phone.

No, that's not true.

Please consider using paragraphs the next time you post. Huge blocks of text are very hard to read.

I read in a search one day if anyone even know’s your phone number they can install an app on your phone. It’s hard to believe that this can happen, but I know as an iPhone user there have been so many things happening on both my husband iPhone & mine without us ourselves doing it, such as things turning on themselves, & turning off themselves with us not evening doing it, & so many other things that have happen on our iPhones we have lost count of it all, & things that are causing us to even argue between one another that has put a strain on our marriage. Every time I call Apple with these problems that are accuring they almost always don’t have an answer for us! They say it’s the phone!! I don’t get it, why should we pay & live with something that we all need these days & have fear of another argument because of something else now is happening on the phone that shouldn’t be happening! I myself thought I was being spied on as well, especially the day I was talking to my husband about something & the very next morning I had an email advertising what I was just talking to him about the day before, how can you explain that! I believe the app developers are doing things on our phones without us knowing it or at least until we are noticing & going through issues. Another thing on our Analytics portion on the phone under Memory Snapshot there were things on there saying jailbreak, heard, permissions, syncing, so, so many things I had them at one time all written down for when I called Apple about it they said that they would have one of thier engineers look into it & they will get back to you about it. Well they got back to us in a week later, & said everything was ok with the phone that there wasn’t any wrong with it!!! This issue that was seen on the phone under Memory Snapshot showed it to be that this was in a 5 month span but we didn’t notice it was on the phone until 2 months later ( it said all these things from June to Oct ) & we called about it in Dec I believe it was & that is when I wrote down all it was saying within that time frame told them about it & as I wrote these things down & I looked up what they meant, which even had me more convinced I was being spied on, but that never matter to Apple, they said everything was good with the phone. I even felt like I was being spied on more so because as I was finished for the night writing down what I found, I put the phone on charge then went to bed, got up the next morning took the phone off charge to continue with writing the little bit that was left to write down, all that info was GONE!!! Now what would you think of this matter

Tdb1962 wrote:

Sorry I didn’t use paragraphs, but I didn’t see that you have an award for mentioning to other people about how they write either!

I didn’t know I was in your composition writing class!

I made a civil suggestion. Why do you think it's appropriate to be rude to me? If you want people, who, by the way are volunteering their time, to help you, it's only polite to make it easy for them to read your post.

You were rude first by stating I wasn’t properly writing my post.....

Secondly, I wasn’t asking for help, I merely was writing about what had happened to us with our phones & why I thought I was feeling like I was being spied on as well!

I did not ask for any help with anything on our phones, I just said what do you think of this matter to Micheal Black when he was responding to nano1222, that was all I said......

I didn’t criticize anyone for the way they wrote thier post!

So who was the rude one here?

Thank you sir,

I somehow wished I never posted what I mentioned about the issues that had happened on our phones, look what happened.

I am someone who keeps to myself but has been very fed up with the issues that has been going on & just wanted to see if anyone else was going through similar things like I had been but on a phone, that’s all......

Thank you again.....

Tdb1962

Sorry I didn’t use paragraphs, but I didn’t see that you have an award for mentioning to other people about how they write either!

I didn’t know I was in your composition writing class!