My iPhone is compromised

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Level 1

17 points

My iPhone is compromised

Both my girlfriends as well as my iPhones compromised. My phone doesn’t appear to be AS bad as her phone anymore but both of us had to get not only new phones but also phone numbers. On my phone it is just dumb things. The phone will flash, and I will then notice on my text app that have a d*ck for my picture and the pinned contacts have changed. They also have taken private video and pictures and have put them into the Files app, to send them off to a server. I can never see what or how because every document that is in there is encrypted via secure shell.

my girlfriend, these people have harassed her insurmountably. They would send her harassing messages that would disappear almost like TikTok but it would be on the Home Screen. They hacked into her credit card accounts, bank accounts, her retirement account, where the stole over $50k.

I have noticed folders which had been purposely created on my Files app, where the names to the folders were named literally quotes from an argument that we had one day. This tells me that either they can hear us whenever they want. Also they have left me screen recordings of them playing around on my phone and at the bottom of the screen you could see what my girlfriend and I were saying but in text. There was even video where you could see that they can capture video whenever they want as well! I can tell you one thing…. I didn’t create that screen recording and yes I do have a screen recording app but it appears that whoever it is has some kind of virtual copy of my phone and the recording look as if they are using sometimes on a computer or even a tablet.

My girlfriend is so worried to even use it anymore and has deleted all but 3 apps on her home page. She just got back from out of town, and she is not tech savvy but there was this circle like thing in her home screen which had all kinds of short cuts including 3,4 and 5 finger swiping options. I have never even heard of this thing whatever it was but as soon as I reset her phone the thing disappeared. maybe that is just a new thing from an update but not for nothing, my girlfriend has no idea how to do anything much less set up some kind of shortcut button on her home screen.

we are completely stuck and are completely sick and fed up with all the so called professionals who claim that we must have given our passwords out or let someone else use our phones because that is totally incorrect. The point I’m trying to make here isn’t that our stuff is and has been hacked for well over a year, but furthermore it is so insanely frustrating to call Apple support and get ****** on, or ask the community and every-time have someone or anyone simply tries to explain it away.

What we really need is to find out how to 100% stop this. It seems like there is no help because no one believes us and frankly we can’t go to the police about our stinking iPhones being hacked but when someone is using your gps, messaging you and telling you that they know where you are and then you come to find that your house you haven’t been to in 3 months has been broken into starts to make a person slightly ****** off especially when there is not an ounce of help that anyone can give. We have tried everything! We even both have a set of yubi encryption keys for 2 factor authentication! Apparently that’s useless. Oh and so is lockdown. It doesn’t thwart anything. I apologize if I am coming off rude or as a know it all but one thing I am positive of is that both my girlfriend and I have some kind of persistent connection going on where nothing is private and whenever these losers feel like it, they will 100% let it be know that “to a degree” they own you. What is the world can we do?

PS sorry about the name of the phone, it’s a name off of an excel document I found on my iPhone and the name was Jenkins.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 14 Pro

Posted on Jan 24, 2024 04:56 PM

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Answer 1

KaeBFly

Level 6

8,503 points

Jan 24, 2024 05:22 PM in response to iCollect

Generally for all of that to be happening on an iPhone it would have to either be because someone somehow knows your credentials to gain access like that, they had to have physical access to your device at some point, you have something on your device that was compromised allowing all of this, or the most common possibility would be the device was jail broken. As frustrated as you may be honestly no one on here, a user to user forum is going to be able to help you. There may not be anything that Apple can do to assist you….especially if either device was jail broken. Not saying that is what happened. Other than completely erasing both devices and setting them up as new without restoring a backup and seeing how everything goes not sure what to tell you to do. If they have your actual Apple Credentials and have added trusted devices you don’t own you need to remove those devices. You need to change your passwords for any accounts you have been using on your phones, preferably from something other than your devices (a non-Apple device would be ideal). Since you probably have heard all of this you aren’t going to be happy with any responses made…especially since you have already mentioned being upset by past community responses.

So not sure if this was solely to rant (which isn’t a technical question and not what the forum is for) or if you were trying to get your feelings to Apple (which this isn’t the place to do so) but if it’s been over a year and you fell strongly it’s on Apple to fix whatever outside interference is going on but have not been able to it might be worth your sanity to consider trying your luck outside of Apple (meaning going with a different phone for your needs). It’s not necessarily what you would want but if you feel like this is Apple’s fault because they couldn’t stop whatever or whoever is targeting your devices it just seems like you would rather see if you could eliminate the problem if you didn’t use Apple anything. Wish you luck but really don’t think you’re going to find the fix you want on here

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Answer 2

KaeBFly

Level 6

8,503 points

Jan 24, 2024 05:25 PM in response to iCollect

Curious….this computer is not an Apple right? And you’re experiencing issues there also? Would seem like the source of your problems wouldn’t be Apple related if that’s the case so your problem is way bigger than you not being able to get help from Apple to resolve whatever/whoever is doing this.

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Answer 3

iCollect Author

Level 1

17 points

Jan 24, 2024 05:15 PM in response to iCollect

Just a quick side note, my computer which since I bought it in August has been factory reset with bare bones windows 11. It doesn’t matter. As soon as I get it running again, there should be zero files created unless system files but there are all sorts of powershell, virtual machines, and secure shell commands that are in those powershell commands. Not for nothing, I love to play around but have no use for SSH , I’ve turned off hyper V and frankly I don’t use powershell much if ever! The reason I’m putting this here is because this is not just a phone issue, my router was hacked, the password would change right in front of my face before I could change it myself I’d get a notification to save it but it would be a bunch of swear words and gay slurs. I’ve given up on WiFi no longer use and I use mobile hotspot for my computer. Believe it or not, this is 100% happening and the best advice I can get is “Who cares! Don’t worry about it!” Well that doesn’t really sit well for me especially when i worry about my girlfriend not knowing what it is that these psychos are capable of. I’ll never know who it is, I’ve racked my mind, we just want this to stop! Please anyone who knows more than how to explain it away or tell me that I’m full of it help us! Yes I know it sounds incredibly insane, but that doesn’t change the fact of what has happened, could happen, or even is happening. Help!!!!

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Answer 4

iCollect Author

Level 1

17 points

Jan 24, 2024 05:58 PM in response to KaeBFly

No computer is not Apple, however my girlfriend’s computer was. It was at her house when I had been broken into and wasn’t taken for whatever reason but we couldn’t do anything on it because it was stuck on admin mode and via command line we couldn’t get it to change. At the end of the day I just deleted the partition so it now needs to be re imaged.

my computer is a pc, yes there is an infection which I cannot stop. No antivirus picks up, malwarebytes etc for all I know these programs have been manipulated. I use nord vpn, but in my temp folder found some very suspect files which I plan to send to Nord.

back to the iPhones though, sure the pc is a big problem but I keep it in a faraday bag and use it maybe a few times a week. Never with WiFi.

our phones just like anyone else’s have become somewhat of a lifeline, pda, colander, journal, medical info… you name it. Our phones are our appendages! Nowadays you really can’t survive without one. I’m completely aware of the pc being a problem which is really the main reason I don’t even use the thing anymore which really stinks because I love computers but I don’t know how to hack nor do I want to. I do wish I knew enough about hacking to be able to sniff out how this person/people have been able to gain access for so long over multiple numbers, email addresses and iTunes accounts.

I am not trying to create a stink, but if this is happening to both my girlfriend and myself who are small town people in their 40’s with really nothing under exciting going on and definitely no sensitive info other than that of possible financial stuff but we’re not Richey rich, and again, no idea who, why, and most importantly how this is being done!

This is the last opinion I will state, if this can happen to us, and we are not rockstars by any stretch, there is no doubt in my mind that this is happening to way more people who don’t even realize that it is going on. Sooner or later it’ll come out how easy it is to hack a persons iPhone and do whatever the nefarious hacker wants to do. If it happened to us, it’s happening everywhere.

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Answer 5

iCollect Author

Level 1

17 points

Jan 24, 2024 07:11 PM in response to KaeBFly

I apologize for what seemed to be a rant. Yes I did throw some rant in there because we are so completely out of this world confused. My girlfriend was using a flip phone for at least 4 months. Her flip phone had a fake email address for google with my name but it wasn’t ever one of my email addresses. This is because somehow, not only did the attacker brick her phone as it would say wait 3 hours to use passcode when we never even put it in to begin with but I eventually restored it with iTunes once I got a computer that worked as they all failed one after another.

this is a community help board right? I’m not asking for anyone to go ahead and step by step tell me what to do. What I’m looking for are some other people for whom this has happened. There is no way that we are the only 2 in small town upstate NY. Also, I do feel that Apple should at least begin to acknowledge this. I have used several different types of phones. Android is far worse than Apple. So I have the money to keep testing out new types of phones? No. Plus Apple claims that they are the safest phones available! How come I found not once but twice an Apple certificate on my iPhone for “Apple and Baseband Telephony Logging”? I’m no app developer and no I have never asked for that to be installed on my phone but I do have pictures to prove it. Apple being that their claim is, “iPhones are not hackable” is nonsense and if someone can remotely install Apple Certificates, which allows someone to do god knows what then I imagine the person is capable of doing anything! When I called Apple about this, they had no answers which only makes matters worse.

I agree with you that fully resetting the phone is ideal, creating a new email, changing every and all 250 accounts passwords and starting new, but the problem is that my poor girlfriend did exactly that! New out of state phone number, random email address and yet this stuff continues to happen! I’m almost beginning to think that the attacker is exploiting the data connection or cellular connection. Sounds impossible? Certainly but I thought last year at this time that my girlfriend was full of it until I saw messages disappear in an instant from her home screen. It causes a whole lot of problems and created several issues that should be nonexistent.

I appreciate your response, however it’s not that I’m demanding anything other than the hopes that there are people out there who have and are going through this same thing. There is absolutely no way that it’s just the 2 of us whom are being targeted by such a sophisticated attack that no one else has ever even heard of it. This is where the part comes in where it’s next to impossible to get anyone to even believe you. You say that nope the apple experts can’t/won’t help you so what’s my post about? Well I’ve been stewing on it for a very long time and afraid to even put it out there. Probably because my expectation is just like you said, no one here or at Apple can help me. WHO CAM HELP? MR. ROBOT? Do we go back to rotary phones and telegraphs? It’s a complete violation of our rights and due to the frequency for which it’s happening we feel like a couple of lab rats! Does anyone have any idea of who can help in such a situation? What I’ve written is just factual statements and I’m sorry if it sounds like a rant but calling Apple I might as well bang my head against the wall. There’s is no way that Apple doesn’t have the capability to run a diagnostic on a phone. I wouldn’t waste my time making an issue about this if it wasn’t happening. If not Apple, does anyone know of who can help with cybercrime that appears to have begun with Apple?

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