security & privacy

Earlier this year, I upgraded a MacBookPro8,1 (a late 2011 13-inch MBP) from High Sierra to a dosdude1-patched Mojave. From (I believe) Mountain Lion forward, Apple updated how other applications have access to key hardware components and software elements, via the new Security & Privacy...

One thing that really winds me up about my previous Mini and current M1 Studio Base Max: both never really go to sleep. This remains true, even with Bluetooth disabled (which is part of the problem, imo). Sure, I can get the display to turn off (after multiple attempts with some regularity) but...

My wife was texting with a contractor doing some work for us. In the middle of the thread, a message appeared that appeared to be from her, but she didn’t send it. It was seemingly on topic generally but mentioned a name that neither she or the contractor recognized. It’s a new iPhone 15 Pro...

This is a bit odd, but on Sunday I received a password reset email from Apple saying that it had been changed successfully. Well, I didn’t notice this email until today but over the course of this week I got several of the “Your Apple ID and phone number are now being used for iMessage on a...

Hello Mac friends, I am not an expert by ANY means, so I apologize in advance for how uneducated this will sound. I'm just a person with suspicions of being hacked looking for help...(by someone who I lived with and had access and personal details enough to do so). I am not looking for...

On another thread (Apple Promotes iCloud's Advanced End-to-End Encryption Feature as Data Breaches Increase) someone pointed out to me the following (Ref: Post #48): "Cameron Jay Ortis testified in Ontario Superior Court that a foreign ally told him of a plan to encourage targets to begin using...

OK... for years I'm used to the sheer amount of attempts to find open ports on my IP address by Chinese bots/hackers each hour. But today I saw something new in the firewall reports from my network. For some odd reason the HomePod mini's try to connect to a China Telecom CDN (datacenter). Why...

Crazy how careful we are with smartphones and apps and social media but here, our own transportation devices are spying on us. https://apnews.com/article/data-privacy-cars-data-collection-mozilla-foundation-c616f41983b6cbd62445da0e4962091d

Hello. I think my phone may be compromised. I’m not sure how it happened but I’ve been seeing weird flickers on certain settings, having apps tampered with, and weird entries in analytics. I’m not a developer at all, but I always check them out and have noticed some weird ones in there. Can you...

I was getting weird ScreenTime notifications. Then I found "montgomerycountymd.gov" in my App Limits settings. Problem is I NEVER even visited this site on any of my devices let alone adding it to App Limits. Is this just a bug or should I be worried about device security? I ran a Malwarebytes...

Thread edited for legal reason. A few months ago, I stumbled upon a thread about an iPhone user who might have found someone else's pictures on their phone. Although they couldn't provide evidence, many of us were deeply concerned about the situation. Fast forward to today, while cleaning up...

good morning, my Apple ID got hacked (my password suddenly did't work) but I was able to change my password, I have never had any problems before, but have new device (iPad 10th gen) and only has native security so that is my suspect. and I have/had 2 factor authentication active. What can I do...

If you view the attached screenshots you’ll see that there’s a very strange 40MB “Software Update” (“update” “app”) that’s installed on my phone (iOS 16.3.1) that suddenly appeared in the iPhone Storage List around the time of a late-iOS 15 update, and it’s been there ever since. This “app” in...

Hello everyone. A friend who works wifh cybersecurity says that most likely my network, my desktop (windows 10) and my smartphone (android 12) was hacked, he also assumed that criminals could be reading the iPad data packets. As my ISP is stupid and does not allow the user access to the router...

Since getting iPhone 14 and latest IOS - I have been having what I would consider some rather troubling security issues. They have occured with my data being shared with my wife's iCloud. We do have a family configured for iCloud - but these issues have never been present before. The first...

I've been trying to wipe several HFS+ formatted external HDD's with Apple Disk Utility, but it's not working. The drives were in working order before attempting erasure (in preparation to donate the drives to a non-profit). They still mount, but they began the erase procedure for about an...

I was just wondering if there is anything that can protect your iPhone/computer if you need to connect to public Wi-Fi in an airport or hotel? My wife may need to use her Win laptop to connect to her office if something critical comes up when we are on vacation. I was thinking about a...

I've heard that while Apple provides security updates to an OS it is still supporting, e.g. Big Sur, there are some known vulnerabilities that are only addressed in the latest OS, e.g. Monterey. What kind of vulnerabilities are these? Something one would encounter in typical use of Mac OS?

I followed the Epic fiasco for a little while. They started off wanting to avoid paying Apple for distribution, and bent their pitch to suggest that Apple was taking too large of a cut. Nevermind that years ago they also wanted something like 25% for using their Unreal Engine, and have lost...

Update: I just flashed macOS to a USB thumb drive. The red box around the Apple logo still appeared. That rules out SSD issues. This is largely to keep others on their toes and provide information, but I do have questions. These are at the end. I am also attaching two EtreCheck reports, one...