How to Recognize a Hacked iPhone Although you would believe that hackers exclusively go after famous people so they can demand money, this is not the case. Your data may be sold to third parties for advertising purposes regardless of who you are. Or, you can fall victim to a fraud, whether it’s through deliberate manipulation, direct threats, or demands for ransom. Another myth is that Apple products are impervious to malware or hacking. Although the risk is much diminished, it still exists. Because of this, it’s critical to remain vigilant and take quick action if you spot one or more of the warning indicators we’ll list. After that, here’s how to determine whether an iPhone has been hacked.
Help requests or warnings
Have you ever received a call for assistance from someone requesting personal and financial information via phone, text, or email? It’s also possible that you input information to confirm after receiving a warning that your Facebook, Google, or iCloud account had been compromised, marked for deletion, or the password had somehow expired. These are typical methods used by hackers to phish for your personal information and don’t take much work on their part.
Battery drain increasing
Check out our post on why my battery is draining so quickly to learn more. This is not always a sign that your phone has been hijacked. However, a declining battery percentage and a rise in heat (caused by your processor running longer) raise suspicion. Here is what to do.
- Start the settings.
- Visit Battery.
- Apps and battery usage percentages should be on the list. See if you can identify any of the top 5 apps.
- Optional. Click Show Activity, Show Detailed Usage, or Last 10 Days to acquire more information and perhaps find the offender.
You can also check Battery Health to see if your iPhone was hacked or if the problem is with the battery.
- Launch Settings.
- Touch Battery.
- Battery Health can be tapped.
- You can view the battery’s condition and how much it has changed from when it was brand-new. Apple also assigns a battery performance rating. Since it’s only an estimate, this figure needs to be viewed with caution.
Decreased performance
Consider whether your phone has recently been functioning slowly. If this is the case, start by doing a system cleanup by uninstalling or turning off any applications you haven’t used in a while.
Next, watch out for having an excessive number of background apps open. On iOS 13 and later, swipe in a diagonal motion from the bottom left corner toward the centre to accomplish this. There will be a list of background programmes. To close an app window, place your finger over it and swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
Try looking through internal storage and getting rid of items you don’t use frequently if this didn’t help. It is plausible to believe that hacking is at blame if neither of these actions seemed to make a noticeable change.
Strange alerts and pop-ups
Have you ever received an unexpected request for confirmation? Perhaps someone requested you to grant them access to your storage, camera, contacts, or text messages. In either case, it’s time to exercise caution. It might also be something benign like submitting a review, giving something five stars, or claiming a reward. Never do anything unless you can confirm where it came from and whether someone else experienced the same thing online.
Unusual texts or calls
Unusual calls or text messages on your phone, both sent and received, are other indicators that hackers have accessed your iPhone. If you are unfamiliar with the number, you might not consider it to be a major concern. However, a hacker may use your phone to make international calls, some of which may be against the law.
Another common method for verifying an online account is by receiving a verification code by SMS or a brief phone call. This is the terrible part: the hacker can register you for a variety of services, both free and paid ones, and engage in illegal activity under your name.
increased use of mobile data
If the access to 3G and 4GB mobile networks wasn’t compromised directly, it might have been. To check the status of your monthly payment or the amount of remaining credits on a prepaid SIM, enter the code provided by your mobile service provider. Verify to see if the bill has gone up. If not, see if your available mobile data has decreased and how many MBs (or GBs) you have left. It’s a good indication that someone else utilised mobile data if you haven’t used it frequently or at all.
Apps that you don’t recognise being present
Have any new apps recently appeared on your phone? especially when no one else could have done it and you don’t remember doing it? Your iPhone may have been jailbroken or had developer access obtained by a hacker. In all scenarios, there will undoubtedly be one or more apps on the list.
The presence of additional Notepad, Note, Calculator, third-party music player for Apple devices, or any other such innocent-looking apps is another typical indicator of hacking. They might even perform flawlessly. They are actually surveillance programmes that track your movements and locations, transfer data, gain access to your microphone and camera, and even give the hacker remote control of your device.
Unusual behaviour on your accounts
It’s possible that your iPhone wasn’t directly hacked. It’s also normal to lose control of your Hotmail, Google, or iCloud accounts. They can use the email to scam and deceive people in addition to spamming them. Additionally, through Gmail, iCloud, or Hotmail, they can access other services you use and obtain your backups.
First, look through your sent, received, deleted, and draught emails. If nothing is there, we advise you to check internet sources like haveibeenpwned.com or download an app like Dashlane that will notify you of data breaches if there are any.
Complete loss of access to the SIM card
Some folks suddenly become unable to access their phone numbers. Although the hacker would need to have considerable abilities, it has happened before. They can call your mobile service provider and pretend you’ve lost the SIM card after obtaining your personal information.
With that type of access, you would think it would be simple for them to deceive them. The trail becomes cold after they have the SIM card shipped to a new address, frequently a P.O. box. With that, they can use your identity as they want without fear of being found out. After all that work, it most likely won’t be legal.
