I was scrolling through my Facebook feed a few months ago and saw a post from a friend. Her iPhone appeared to be frozen, she was locked out of it and there was a message that she needed to pay a $50 fee in order to regain access to her iPhone. Over the years I have seen several similar instances. I remember seeing once on my own iOS device a message in Safari that took over my screen and told me to contact Apple because I had a virus on my iPad. Knowing that Apple would never send me an alert about needing to call them I simply ignored it. I tried to close out of Safari by hitting the home button, that worked, but when I opened Safari again the message was still there. Ultimately I had to power down my iPad and upon restart, it was gone, I never saw the message again. I had a few friends send me some panicked messages with screenshots of this same message on their device, I let them know to just turn off the iPad or iPhone. Historically, that is all you needed to do to avoid a scam about a virus or hack. This particular message was not isolated to an iOS device, it could happen on a desktop as well. However, all this was, was a scam to get some money out of a concerned user and nothing more.
Fast forward a few years and now we are seeing reports of Mac computers or iOS devices locked and messages demanding a ransom be paid to regain access to your device. Unlike the Safari messages from a few years ago, just powering down your device or clearing your browsing history is not going to fix this problem. These new Bitcoin or PayPal ransomware are locking users out of their devices. Victims can not use them and are stuck with often one question running through their minds, do I really have to pay a ransom?
Do not pay the ransom! But how do you regain access, and, more importantly, how did you get locked out in the first place. As hackers have gotten more sophisticated, so has their ability to scam you. In almost all of the reported cases we have seen or heard about, users have been locked out via find my iPhone/iPad or find my Mac. Unfortunately, their iCloud account was accessed by the scammers who have locked users out of their devices by initiating the lost mode feature. Sometimes you might simply be locked out with a message that says the device is in lost mode and requires a code ( a code you don’t have access to ) or it’s asking for the ransom.
Thankfully all is not lost, but it does require a bit of work. Regaining access to your device will mean a trip to your local Apple Authorized Repair location or calling and talking to Apple directly. You will need to provide the service location or Apple a proof of purchase to prove you are the owner of the device and you will be able to regain access and most likely without losing your information. You can also follow some troubleshooting tips online from Apple, potentially if you are not being asked for a ransom these steps might help.
But how did this happen? As I mentioned earlier, this is through your iCloud account, which was compromised. You will want to take immediate action and change your iCloud password as soon as you regain access. If you do not have two-factor authentication enabled on your device you will want to do so. Setting up two-factor authentication and ideally setting a stronger password for your account will prevent these kinds of breaches. I always recommend passwords with a combination of letters, numbers and even special characters, and your password selection should be somewhat random. Hopefully, with these tips you can avoid being locked out of your device!