Nov 05, 2019 I’m a programmer who cracked your email account and device about half year ago. Get rid of Your operating system has been hacked from Mac OS X. Guide 3: Remove Your operating system has been hacked from Google Chrome. If you are about to tamper with Library files on Mac, be sure to know the name of the virus file, because if you. Mar 25, 2020 If you think your Apple ID is compromised, use these steps to gain control of it and review your account information: Sign in to your Apple ID account page.If you can't sign in or you receive a message that the account is locked when you try to sign in, try to reset or unlock your account. Change your Apple ID password and choose a strong password.
For most of us, our phones are the center of our daily lives, and as a result, they contain a treasure trove of personal information, from banking details to messaging and email accounts. This sensitive data can be pretty enticing to a range of the nefarious, from cybercriminals to someone you may even know.
Phone hacking can involve the unknowing download of spyware that relays information on your activity – such as logging keystrokes to scrape passwords; spy apps downloaded by someone with access to your device; or other malware that exploits your phone, for example by using its internet bandwidth in a botnet, as occurred with malware that infected nearly 20 million Android devices.
“The most common way that smartphones can be hacked is to infect the device with malware,” says Victor Chebyshev, a security researcher at Kaspersky Lab. This malware can arrive on the device buried inside apps downloaded by the user – and the likelihood of a malicious app rises when downloading away from the official app stores, which police their content.
While iPhones aren’t immune to hacking, Apple’s strict vetting policy means the incidence of bad apps targeting iPhones (at least non-jailbroken ones) is lower than for Android phones. “Android devices are more susceptible to these kinds of attacks because they have the option to install applications from third parties,” says Chebyshev.
9 steps to figuring out who hacked your phone
A sluggish phone or fast-draining battery are common symptoms of a compromised phone – but they can also indicate your device needs a spring clean to spruce up performance or improve its battery life. Another red flag is if your data usage has gone through the roof – this could indicate a dodgy app is sending data back to its mothership.
“Whether a user can determine who is responsible for a compromised phone depends on what kind of threat was on the device,” says Chebyshev.
According to Verizon’s 2020 Data Breach Investigation, 86% of cyberattacks are motivated by monetary gain – for example, through selling someone’s stolen credentials on the dark web, gaining access to financial accounts, or hacking sensitive data and holding the victim to ransom. In these cases, hackers usually rely on malware that remotely exploits vulnerabilities in apps or operating systems to steal information (or in the case of phishing malware, trick people into inputting their critical data).
However, somebody known to you who wants to monitor your movements – whether that’s a disgruntled ex or suspicious parent – and who has physical access to your device might also be able to install a spy app that acts like malicious software, tracking your location, photos, messages and calls.
To narrow down the field of suspects, you can try to determine exactly how your phone is being compromised.
1. Check your phone bill
Are you being charged for premium-rate texts you never sent – or texts you never signed up for? You’ve probably been infected by malware that forces your phone to send or receive texts that generate revenue for cybercriminals. This common form of mobile malware is believed to be the first type found targeting Android, back in 2010, and today plenty of it is still floating around.
If you’re receiving premium-rate text messages, try texting STOP to the number. If this doesn’t work, you’ll have to contact your cell carrier who should be able to block the number.
If your phone is sending the texts, you may be able to fix it by running a security app such as Bitdefender or McAfee to find and remove malware (on Android only; security apps for iOS don’t have this feature). Also, try deleting any third-party messaging apps and any other apps you installed just before the phone started sending the texts.
2. Go through your apps list
If there are any apps you don’t remember downloading, look them up online to see if any of them have been reviewed negatively for malware or other suspicious activity. In this case, the apps will have been compromised by a hacker who likely isn’t targeting you personally but is distributing malware with the aim of scraping as much data as possible. The BankBot malware, for instance, is a trojan that has infected hundreds of Android apps to display a phishing screen to steal users’ banking credentials.
“If it was a regular trojan [malware coded within another app] the user will not be able to attribute who was responsible for the attack,” says Chebyshev. “If it was commercial spyware, it’s sometimes possible to figure out the responsible person.”
3. Look up your flashlight and battery-saver apps
Got a phone full of apps and can’t remember for sure which you downloaded? Some categories of apps have attracted more than their fair share of malicious actors – several flashlight apps on Google Play were infected with malware that tried to scrape users’ financial info, while one should be wary of battery-saver apps as they have often been used for malware, says Josh Galindo, director of training at phone repair service uBreakiFix.
If you have these types of apps, check online for any negative reviews. You can also try deleting them to see if this affects your phone performance. “If you install an app and the device performance decreases, that’s an indicator,” says Galindo. “If you uninstall the app and your device begins working properly again, this means that the app is likely contaminated with malware and you should avoid downloading it in the future.”
4. Double-check your favorite popular games
Downloaded a new super-popular game recently? Ensure it operates like it’s meant to – and validate that by looking up reviews online – otherwise it may be a scam version, potentially ridden with cryptojacking malware.
Cryptojacking trojans mine cryptocurrency unbeknownst to users, and their prevalence has risen on smartphones that when infected in thousands, can deliver attackers a high overall processing power. The idea is that, if a cryptojacker hacks other devices, they can get paid for mining without having to use their own resources (or pay the electricity bill).
On mobile, cryptojacking malware tends to hide inside innocent-looking apps such as fake versions of popular games. If your phone slows down, heats up and its battery is dying long before the end of the day – and you’ve tried to improve your battery life– it could be a sign that a malicious app like a cryptojacking trojan is hogging all the juice.
They’re mostly prevalent on Android – and if you’ve downloaded from non-official app marketplaces, the risk is higher.
5. Scroll through your call list
Done all of the above and still convinced that someone somewhere has your personal data, siphoned from your smartphone? Apps aren’t the only way a phone can be infected by malware. Have you picked up any random calls lately? “Callers offering a free cruise or claiming that you won a sweepstakes are likely scam efforts to hack your information or record your voice,” says Galindo.
6. Did you click that link?
If you recently clicked on a link on a text message or an unexpected pop-up, you may have inadvertently fallen prey to phishing. Phishing often preys on panic or high emotion – as in the coronavirus-related scam texts claiming that receivers had been exposed to someone with COVID-19 symptoms, and exhorting them to click for more information.
It’s often impossible to divine who is behind such scams, although you can report any phishing texts to your cell carrier and block these numbers.
7. Consider the last time you used public WiFi
According to Kaspersky Lab, one in four hotspots are unsecured, and even the ones that are password-protected could potentially be set up by someone with malicious intent. On top of that, the protocol (WPA2 or WPA3) that encrypts traffic between devices and routers can itself be vulnerable – as in the serious WPA2 flaw uncovered by researchers in 2017 that would have allowed certain traffic to be intercepted.
If your phone isn’t protected by a VPN and you logged into an unsecured public WiFi hotspot, it’s possible someone could have been spying on the connection – and scraped your sensitive information if you logged into your email or bought something online.
8. Is your iCloud safe?
iPhone user? A cracked iCloud login can allow someone to not only access your photos, but also make use of semi-legal spy software to remotely monitor your device’s calls, messages, contacts and location.
Luckily, enabling two-factor authentication for your Apple ID drastically reduces this risk, because if someone tries to sign into your account from a new device, you’ll receive an approval request and sign-in code on your iPhone (or other iOS/Mac devices linked to your Apple ID).
(To enable two-factor authentication, for iOS 10.3 and newer: Settings > [your name] > Password & Security. For iOS 10.2 or older: Settings > iCloud > Apple ID > Password & Security.)
However, a weak or reused password without two-factor authentication can put your account – and phone – at risk.
Here’s how it works: Many people use the same email address in their Apple ID as the login for dozens of online accounts. If this email address is revealed in a data breach, then hackers – who may purchase or find these login details at data dump websites – have access to your Apple ID.
Couple that with a weak password and your iCloud account can be breached by attackers who use cracking software to guess hundreds of hacked or common passwords in order to breach accounts.
Unfortunately, the same goes for an email and password combo that can be guessed or found out by someone you know who’d want to spy on you – especially if they can access your iPhone to use the two-factor code.
9. Run a security scan
Since most malware is designed to evade detection, you may not discover much on your own. Spyware apps – or stalkerware – is one category of particularly insidious apps designed purely to monitor a victim’s activity (rather than for any financial gain).
Security apps, particularly for Android, can help determine if your phone contains such a malicious app, as well as help fend off future cyber attacks by, for example, preventing you from visiting malicious webpages.
Android: Commercial spyware is unfortunately all too easy to find online. Such spy apps have system-level access to extremely detailed information about your device activity such as the messages you write, photos you take and GPS location – and what’s more, these apps are hidden from view.
They also need to be downloaded physically to your device, which means if they’re on your device it was done by someone with access to your device (and your PIN). Chances are, you can figure who in your life would want to monitor your phone.
To find out if you have such apps on your Android phone, download a security app such as Bitdefender or McAfee, which will flag any malicious programs. You can also head to Settings > Security > Device administration and check if “Unknown sources” for app installations is enabled (and you didn’t do it) – this allows apps from non-official app stores, on which there’s likely to be far more stalkerware.
iPhone: Spy apps on a non-jailbroken iPhone are far less prevalent since such software – which tampers with system-level functions - doesn’t make it onto the App Store. (However, they do exist and work via someone knowing your iCloud login and password.)
If your iPhone is jailbroken, that opens it up to potentially malicious apps that haven’t been vetted by the App Store, including spy apps downloaded without your knowledge.
Security apps such as Lookout and Sophos will alert you if your iPhone has been jailbroken – so if you’re alerted of this but haven’t done it yourself, that can be a red flag.
However, whether security software – for Android or iOS – can find spy apps will depend on how sophisticated or new the spy app is since security software scans for malware that’s already known. (That’s why it’s crucial to download updates to security software as soon as available since updates will incorporate new instances of discovered malware.)
3 steps to take if your phone has been hacked
1. Delete any apps or messages that may be malicious
If deleting them fixes any performance issues, great. Even if not, it’s a good idea to clear your device of apps that may have been flagged from that security scan.
How To Tell If Macbook Hacked
You can also try shutting down apps one by one, as soon as your phone starts to slow down or heat up. If shutting down a particular app seems to return things to normal, that app may be malicious – or at the very least, not play too well with your device.
2. Do a factory reset
If after deleting the suspicious app(s) your phone is still behaving strangely, this nuclear option is a quick way of clearing your device of malicious – or sluggish – software left behind.
Android: Settings > System > (Advanced) > Reset options > Erase all data
iPhone: Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings
3. Check if your information is out there
Unfortunately, many hacks and malware present few to no symptoms and often the only time people are aware of a breach is when their digital services are hacked, or, worse, they’re the victims of identity fraud, where hackers have used their stolen information to open accounts or lines of credit.
How To Know If I'm Hacked Mac Computer
There are a few tools you can use to check if any of your information has already been compromised. Have I Been Pwned? is a website run by security developer and Microsoft Regional Director Troy Hunt that checks if email addresses have been exposed in breaches of popular apps and services.
Security apps including Bitdefender (Android) and Lookout (iOS) can also alert you if apps and services you use have been breached, putting your personal information at risk.
Depending on the scale of the data that has been exposed, you may want to set up a fraud alert at the major credit agencies, which will require any potential creditors to request additional verification of your identity.
Keeping your smartphone safe
Check If You Were Hacked
If you find that your logins – particularly passwords – are floating around online, the first thing to do is to change your passwords. The best way to do that is to use a password manager which can automatically generate and save complex, unique passwords for each of your accounts. Check out our top-rated picks here. We like the Dashlane password manager, whose Premium version (from $4.99/month) also scans the Dark Web for instances of your emails or logins being posted for sale.
And to reduce the risk of future phone hacks, always observe general cybersecurity hygiene:
- Think twice before clicking links in SMSes, other messages and emails
- Review app permissions to minimize the risk of a malicious app download.
- Enable two-factor authentication for every online account possible – and especially primary emails and logins like your Apple ID.
- Download security updates for your phone when available to patch vulnerabilities that could otherwise be exploited.
- Protect your device with a PIN or biometric authentication.
Updated on 6/16/2020 with new tips and recommendations
[Image credit: phone hacker concept via BigStockPhoto]
Published August 10th, 2014 at 8:51 AM EDT , modified August 10th, 2014 at 7:30 PM EDT
Apple IDs are a popular target for hackers. This is not only because Apple devices have become so popular, but also because Apple IDs typically provide purchasing power. With an Apple ID, a hacker can purchase music and movies in the iTunes Store or apps in the iOS App Store or Mac App Store on someone else’s dime. Typical symptoms of an Apple ID hack are a sudden inability to log in or strange purchases showing up in your purchase history or on your iOS device. So what do you do if you believe your Apple ID has been hacked?
Effects and Causes
Before discussing how to undo the hack, it’s critically important to understand why dealing with a hacked Apple ID must be done quickly. I’ve seen people who have allowed their Apple IDs to remain hacked for months before bothering to do anything about it. This allows the hacker to continue making purchases with your Apple ID, sending e-mail messages or iMessages as you, accessing your iCloud data, etc. However, there’s an additional problem that most people are either unaware of or don’t think about.
The anti-theft features of Mac and iOS devices involve your Apple ID, and can be abused by someone with access to your Apple ID. Your Apple ID could be used to remotely erase your Mac or iOS devices, which could be a disaster if you don’t maintain a good set of backups. Worse, in iOS 7, your Apple ID can be used to lock your iOS device in a way that cannot be bypassed – even by erasing the iOS device – without access to the Apple ID. If the hacker manages to permanently lock you out of your Apple ID, which can be done in a 3-day period using two-factor verification (more on this shortly), then he/she can then permanently lock your iOS 7 devices!
In other words, if you believe your Apple ID has been hacked, you need to respond quickly and decisively to regain access and lock the hacker out. Failing to do so could cause you to lose all purchases made with your Apple ID, lose all your data and even turn your iOS 7 devices into expensive paperweights!
The first thing most people want to do is scan for viruses, but there is actually little point to doing that. On the Mac, there is very little malware out there, and I’ve never heard of a single confirmed case of an Apple ID being stolen through an infected Mac. On iOS devices (ie, iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches), there is no known malware capable of affecting them unless they have been jailbroken (ie, hacked to disable security in order to download apps from outside the App Store). Further, due to the security features that prevent malware, there is also no anti-virus software capable of scanning an iOS device. If you are using your Apple ID on a Windows machine, keyloggers are possible, but that’s a matter for your Windows anti-virus software and your local Windows tech.
Apple IDs are typically hacked through other means. Some (though certainly not all) possibilities are:
- If your password is a poor one, it may fall to simple brute-force attack by a botnet.
- You could be fooled by one of the many Apple ID phishing scams circulating, in which you receive an e-mail message that is supposedly from Apple, but when you click the link provided in the message, you end up on a fake Apple site that harvests your login information (if you enter it there).
- The e-mail address associated with your Apple ID might have been hacked, possibly allowing a password reset. (The exception here is if you are using an @me.com or @mac.com address as your Apple ID, in which case the address and the Apple ID are the same… hacking one means hacking the other.)
- Your password may have been stored insecurely, such as on a Post-It note in your office that any passers-by can see or in a plain text note in some online account that has been hacked.
- Your password was the same as that used by some other account you own that was hacked first.
- Another account was hacked that gave information about you, such as what your security question answers might be.
- Someone with physical access to your devices has installed spyware in order to harass or steal from you. (Yes, this is even a possibility with iOS devices… with physical access, a hacker can jailbreak them, install spyware, then cover up the fact that it’s jailbroken.)
How to undo the hack
If you think that someone with physical access to one or more of your devices has installed spyware, or if you are using Windows and think you’ve been infected with some kind of spyware trojan or virus, you need to deal with that first and foremost. Most people will be tempted to install some kind of anti-virus software and scan for malware, but that is pointless. Anti-virus software cannot detect many of the things that a person with physical access could do. The only meaningful response is to erase any potentially affected devices and reinstall their systems from scratch. Windows users will have to seek help with this elsewhere, but Mac and iOS users can find instructions for doing this here:
Once your devices are secure, if necessary, you need to change your Apple ID password by logging into Apple’s site for managing Apple IDs:
You need to be sure to choose a secure password. The longer the better, and it should contain a mix of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. It should also be a password that you don’t use for anything else, and you must not store it in an insecure manner. Use a password manager or other encrypted file (such as an encrypted disk image) to store the password.
If your Apple ID password has been changed, so that you are unable to log in, you can use the “Reset your password” link on that page to reset the password. However, if the hacker has taken over your e-mail account or has changed your security questions, or if you have made the error of forgetting the answers to your security questions, you will need to seek help from Apple:
Once you have managed to get access to your Apple ID again, you first need to change your security questions. If the hacker knows them or changed them, they could be used to give the hacker access again. Change the questions, and choose answers that are nonsensical (eg, “What was your first job?” “banana slug”) or even completely random. Be sure to make note of the question/answer pairs in a password manager or encrypted file so that you don’t forget them.
None of this can completely rule out the possibility of a future hack, so you need to lock your account down further by enabling two-factor verification. This doesn’t prevent the account from being hacked, but it does establish additional means for verifying that you own the account. Using two-factor verification yourself is particularly important, because if you don’t do so and your account gets hacked again, the hacker could enable two-factor verification in order to take permanent control of the account. Once two-factor verification is enabled, Apple will not help someone gain access to that account.
For more information about two-factor verification and instructions on how to enable it, see:
How To Know If Hacked Mac
As part of the two-factor verification activation process, you will be given a recovery key. DO NOT lose this key! It will be required to reset your password in the future, if you forget your password. If you don’t have it, and have forgotten your password, you will not be able to regain access to your Apple ID.
Once your Apple ID is secured, you need to turn your attention to other accounts. If your Apple ID uses any e-mail addresses that are not @icloud.com, @me.com or @mac.com, then you also need to change the passwords of those accounts. There is a possibility that one of those accounts was hacked, and was used by the hacker to gain access to your Apple ID. Contact your e-mail provider if you aren’t sure how this is done. Be sure to use a secure password, and do not use the same password as the one you used for your Apple ID.
In addition, if you had any online accounts that used the same password as your old Apple ID password, you need to change all those passwords. Again, be sure to use a secure password, and don’t use a password that you are using for any other account. A password manager can be extremely useful for keeping track of all these passwords, but they should be stored in some kind of encrypted file at a minimum.
How To Know If I'm Hacked Macbook Pro
Once you have regained control of your Apple ID, changed the password and enabled two-factor authentication, the hacker should be locked out. You can now relax, and hopefully your account will never get hacked again!
Updates
August 10, 2014 @ 7:25 pm EST: I forgot to mention one thing… if your Apple ID has been hacked, you should check your purchase history for unauthorized purchases. This is best done in iTunes on a Mac or Windows computer. In iTunes, choose Store -> View Account and enter your password when asked. In the window that opens, click the See All link in the Purchase History section. If you see a purchase that you didn’t make, you’ll need to contact Apple to dispute the charge. Don’t contact your credit card company to dispute the charge unless you want to be locked out of your Apple ID again. (If the card associated with your Apple ID reports an issue to Apple, Apple will immediately lock the Apple ID to prevent further fraudulent purchases.)
How To Know If I'm Hacked Machine
Tags: Apple ID, hack, iCloud