Hacked

[SPROINGY]

Hi All,
I have two iPads, an Air and a 5th generation. Somehow (through Google or through Apple, I don’t know) they are being accessed by a hacker.

When I tell people that, they always want to know how I’m so sure. OK, First, examples of unauthorized changes to my iPad: 1. A photo was added to my iPad, and for sure I didn’t add it and forget it. 2. A financial institution I access online was hacked- I regularly change my security settings, and the last time I did so, I tried to login a few hours later and found myself locked out. That was no mistake; I am meticulous. 3. I can’t change my Apple ID- I posted about this before, and I got a reply that doing that could cause ‘serious problems,’ although there was no explanation given. I can’t access my Google account; the password was changed, even with two methods of 2FA enabled, I can’t get in- believe me, I use the 2FA, and get a ‘sign in approved’ message, but I cannot sign in! 4. My email was deleted prior to 28/12/2019, and a few days later it was deleted prior to 5 February of this year. 5. I erased both iPads simultaneously (Settings->General->Reset->Erase All Content & Settings, *not* Reset all Settings) and a few days later I did a Manual Reinstall (not from backup) and as I can’t Reinstall both of them at the same time, I got a message on the one I was working on saying that the one I *hadn’t* reinstalled was being used for FaceTime (which I’ve never used) and iMessage, too!

OK, there’s 5 examples of unauthorized access, but there’s seemingly no connection between them.

When I did my reinstall, I got a message when I put Gmail back on my tablet that something bad was being installed with it. I’m concerned that if I erase All Content & Settings again, I’ll have difficulty doing a reinstall this time. With IT, I’m not a beginner, neither am I an expert. I don’t misuse the ‘Net.

I don’t know what else to tell you, if you have questions I’ll give my best reply, if you have advice, you’ll have my gratitude!

Thanks!

 

[twerppoet]

Sounds like you iCloud, Gmail, and possibly other accounts have been compromised. Cleaning up the iPad won’t fix any of that. You’ll have to work with the account providers. Whether this was a result of the iPad being hacked, or the accounts being hacked first is irrelevant at this point. Getting your accounts back is the priority.

 

[SPROINGY]

Sounds like you iCloud, Gmail, and possibly other accounts have been compromised. Cleaning up the iPad won’t fix any of that. You’ll have to work with the account providers. Whether this was a result of the iPad being hacked, or the accounts being hacked first is irrelevant at this point. Getting your accounts back is the priority.

Thanks for your reply, twerppoet! Yes, everything you say sounds right on.

Just one thing I don’t understand, if you have time to enlighten me... You say I’ll have to work with the ‘account providers.’ Do you mean Google and Apple, or??

And, how do I work with them?

Sorry to drag this on (I’d like to get past this nasty learning experience pronto!), but I’ve never been through this before, so I’m kind of in the dark regards the steps I should take from here. Could you kindly give me a few pointers?

And again, many thanks for your reply!

 

[scifan57]

If you can still access your accounts, change your passwords immediately. If you can’t access your accounts you’ll have to go through the account providers to regain control of the accounts.

 

[SPROINGY]

Hi scifan57, My apologies for the late response! You’ve mentioned, as did twerppoet, about ‘going through the account providers to regain control of the accounts.’

I’ve never had this experience, could you or twerppoet please give me details about how to do this?

Thank You

 

[twerppoet]

Honestly I’ve never had to do so myself. I’ve only read a few stories, and don’t remember the details well.

I would start with Apple’s usual support phone or text. If they don’t handle it, they should be able to give you the contacts and procedure.

If you have the Apple Support app installed, you could start there. Or go to the Apple.com site and peruse the Contact link a the bottom of the page (in all the small text).

P.S. Sorry I got back to you so late.

 

[SPROINGY]

Thank You so much for your reply, twerppoet!

It’s a great reply, gives me something more to go on!

I’ll win this.

Mankind will win that!

Rock On!

 

[twerppoet]

No problem. Persistence and patience are probably key. The companies are probably going to make you jump through a few hoops; to be certain it’s you who are recovering your accounts and not a crook trying to steal them. A lot of the difficulty is because crooks have used recovery services to steal accounts in the past.

Good luck.

 

[SPROINGY]

Thanks, twerppoet. Sorry for the late reply; I hadn’t expected one.

I studied IT in the past, for good purposes. Now it seems I’ll have to learn about misuse of the ‘Net, to protect myself. Sad.

If I get my iPads restored, what do I need to do to minimize my chances of being hacked again? I am mostly on a hotel’s WiFi. I use a VPN.

 

[twerppoet]

Thanks, twerppoet. Sorry for the late reply; I hadn’t expected one.

I studied IT in the past, for good purposes. Now it seems I’ll have to learn about misuse of the ‘Net, to protect myself. Sad.

If I get my iPads restored, what do I need to do to minimize my chances of being hacked again? I am mostly on a hotel’s WiFi. I use a VPN.

Using a VPN is a good precaution, especially on poorly secured wi-fi networks. The other precautions are the usual of not clicking on links from untrusted sources, good password managment, and other sensible precautions. Understand, it does not sound like you were hacked. You were hacked. At least not directly. What you lost were your accounts, and the could have happened in numerous ways. A direct hacking of the iPad is pretty much the lest likely way they would have used to steal your accounts. After all, if they had access to your iPad, what would they gain by taking away your your accounts?

Anyway, There are tons of good source for basic security practices, and they mostly say the same things. I can’t make a dent in them here. A little searching will turn up several good starting points.

 

[SPROINGY]

Thanks, twerppoet!
My tech knowledge is out of date. I must catch up. And I will! As you said, and I agree, I was hacked.

My priority now is to see that it doesn’t happen again!

Homework time...

Stay Safe!

 

[SPROINGY]

If you can still access your accounts, change your passwords immediately. If you can’t access your accounts you’ll have to go through the account providers to regain control of the accounts.

scifan57, it’s like the hacker is *inside* my iPad, e.g., I changed the passwords etc. for a financial institution, two hours later I tried to login to said institution and found myself locked out, the hacker had gone through 3 layers of security and changed them all. How can this be?
So much for changing passwords, it seems?

 

[scifan57]

Try erasing your iPad and set it up as a new iPad. If there’s any hidden programs on your iPad that are causing your problems, Erase All Content and Settings will get rid of it.

 

[twerppoet]

scifan57, it’s like the hacker is *inside* my iPad, e.g., I changed the passwords etc. for a financial institution, two hours later I tried to login to said institution and found myself locked out, the hacker had gone through 3 layers of security and changed them all. How can this be?
So much for changing passwords, it seems?

Change your challenge questions and answers as well. Best if the answers are faked, or even nonsense (record answers if you do this). That way they can’t guess them based on your info.

Make sure you’ve enabled 2 factor authentication, where they send a code to your phone each time you log in. Pretty much all financial sites do this now. If yours does not, you should ask why.

Contact your bank/financial institutions and let them know what’s going on. They can prevent any changes too your account without a more rigorous procedure (like a physical visit). Or they should be able to.

Make sure your wi-fi is secure. Your manufacturer of internet provider should be able to help with this.

 

[SPROINGY]

Hi twerppoet!

About changing challenge questions and answers, I recall being prompted for those in the past, while setting up my iPad. But the last two times (recently) that I did an iPad restore (one from a backup, one manually), there was no prompt for those. Can I still set them up? *If* you know the path to these Q’s & A’s, I’d love to set them up!

Agreed! 2FA should be, these days, enabled wherever possible!

Making sure my WiFi is secure. Well, it’s really my landlord’s ‘Net provider, so I don’t know about help with that.

But, my VPN company offers a ‘Dedicated IP Address,’ supposedly for my own exclusive use. Do you know if that would help, or maybe something else?

twerppoet, thank you for taking time and replying and being patient with me!

Much Appreciated!