Possible persistent Spyware/Malware on iPhone 6S?

[NostalgiaGuy]

Hello there, this is my first post here for a concern that has been going on for the past two years.

I have a stock iPhone 6s that was never jailbroken or out of my possession, but somehow feel that there is spyware that has somehow installed itself remotely. I took the precaution of factory resetting the device through iTunes at the Apple Store, yet the situation is still getting worse.

What makes me think there is an infection on my device is how often relatives know unusual stuff about my activity, The places I go to during the day and the things I do online they bring it up out of the blue. It's too many of these coincidences that happened sequentially and got me really worried. An example is the past weekend I went to a meetup alone, took some pictures and talked a bit with the strangers before I left, never sharing that even with anyone not even on online accounts, yet several family members knew about it when they sent me subtle texts and calls with rhetorical knowledge that they knew (I'm always to myself so I never really shared interest with anyone). This might seem petty since there isn't any hard evidence that there's something wrong, but it is also hard to suspect malware activity itself without aftermath. I tripped out that night when I got home and right when I walked in the door, someone sent me a text of two pairs of eye emoji's without any context. I told them what the heck did that meant and they didn't clarify, just said "nevermind lol". This is the only feedback that I have been getting and really stressing me out. Maybe normal for a handful of times with the normal Joe but it never stopped for me.

Again, I went to my service provider and asked if there was anything unusual on the account, parental monitoring/unusual SIM activity, and they said they saw nothing unusual that they saw. Even after confronting a Genius twice about this, they claimed there is no possible way for malware to be on the device. The only other odd thing I can come up with is that I get random calls across the country and no one actually answers. I heard that some malware works with SMS texts that send some sort of code to the phone to see if it is working, but right now I just don't know. This is an unusual situation so, no one really have an answer. And obviously I don't have a good standing in the family, which is probably the reason of the invasive activity.


I can't be at ease over this I also made sure my accounts were not synced and changed my icloud password three times so far. So, any of you people got a clue on what's going on? I heard that malware on android can be persistent even after reinstalling ROM's, think I might be experiencing the same.

 

[chscag]

Shut off your iPhone 6s and leave it off for several days if you can. If all the strange things that you mentioned keep happening, then it's likely someone is following you and or watching you. Are you by chance in a difficult relationship right now? Getting divorced? (You mentioned above you don't have good standing in the family.)

 

[c1nnamon]

Maybe find my friend has been activated.

 

[NostalgiaGuy]

Maybe find my friend has been activated.

I made sure that was not activated. Factory reset and did bring back backup either.

 

[eyoungren]

There are other ways of figuring things out.

For instance, we have two SyncUp Drive devices from T-Mobile. They plug in to the OBD port of a vehicle. Part of how these devices function is GPS data. They store trip data. mileage, time, distance, etc. There's an app for it and the one connected to my wife's car is on my secondary phone. The data streams live so I know when she's gotten into the car and started a trip.

If I was paranoid I could open the app and watch her trip progress. All I have to do is look in the app to know where her car (and thus her) are, when she left and when the trip ended, how many miles she drove and how much gas the car has.

None of that has to do with malware or viruses.

As well, my carrier has family tools that are web based. You can tell based on GPS data where each device (and thus each person) are simply by using those tools. I'm not into being creepy and trust my family. And most of the devices are mine anyway so I don't use those tools. But they are available because my family (wife and kids) are on my plan. Again, nothing to do with viruses or malware.

 

[c1nnamon]

Turn off location services.

 

[C DM]

All of this sort of assumes there's something somewhere that might be being used to figure something out. It seems like despite the potential strangeness of it all, it's possible there are some other explanations that can be in play that don't involve devices, carriers, etc.

 

[NostalgiaGuy]

Shut off your iPhone 6s and leave it off for several days if you can. If all the strange things that you mentioned keep happening, then it's likely someone is following you and or watching you. Are you by chance in a difficult relationship right now? Getting divorced? (You mentioned above you don't have good standing in the family.)

No, pretty much I am a loner and feel targeted, like being picked on as the weakest link. It started out with other stuff years ago but escalated to this situation.

Kinda feels like they're making it official to track me wherever I go or what I do and really making it difficult with my relations with other people. This phone thing might be the tip of the ice berg. There are a lot of shady people in the family, but I can't exactly claim stuff at the moment. If there's something I can settle with the phone situation right now that'll be fine.

My political teacher told me about situations like this, how people can form toxic factions even in small atmospheres like this in the common goal to harass certain groups or people. This might be one of those things.
[doublepost=1489450540][/doublepost]

There are other ways of figuring things out.

For instance, we have two SyncUp Drive devices from T-Mobile. They plug in to the OBD port of a vehicle. Part of how these devices function is GPS data. They store trip data. mileage, time, distance, etc. There's an app for it and the one connected to my wife's car is on my secondary phone. The data streams live so I know when she's gotten into the car and started a trip.

If I was paranoid I could open the app and watch her trip progress. All I have to do is look in the app to know where her car (and thus her) are, when she left and when the trip ended, how many miles she drove and how much gas the car has.

None of that has to do with malware or viruses.

As well, my carrier has family tools that are web based. You can tell based on GPS data where each device (and thus each person) are simply by using those tools. I'm not into being creepy and trust my family. And most of the devices are mine anyway so I don't use those tools. But they are available because my family (wife and kids) are on my plan. Again, nothing to do with viruses or malware.

I checked our carrier if tools like those were on the account, they said neither were under the "parental advisory" or whatever it's called.

To be safe, can those tools monitor phone use like apps/logins or camera/mic?

 

[tarsins]

Maybe they discovered your Apple ID and password and have logged-in to your iCloud on an iPhone they use to "watch" you, by seeing your messages, photostream, etc.

EDIT: My bad, I see you've changed your password several times.

 

[NostalgiaGuy]

Maybe they discovered your Apple ID and password and have logged-in to your iCloud on an iPhone they use to "watch" you, by seeing your messages, photostream, etc.

EDIT: My bad, I see you've changed your password several times.

Yeah, I checked that out before and after iTunes OS reinstalls. First I changed it before taking it to Apple, and changed the password twice after the iTunes reinstalls at the Apple store(seems like overkill, but sadly not enough for my situation).

I did my research and took all precautions, but somehow somethings still wrong, there's something they're doing that I haven't discovered yet. To be honest. they know the iPhone platform much better than me and some of my relatives openly identify as a "hacker". Seems like they forced a way through even though the device was suppose to be immune to such activity.

Well, I'm left here without a clue on what to do while they're abusing my social life doing this stuff. They're corrupting the relationships I make with people I meet(when I exchange info and save their number). And out of all my problems, I'm here worrying about being monitored by a phone that advertises as the most secure virus immune platform.

I suggested getting a "dumb phone", but they're very vulnerable to being monitored and spied on. So the same situation would be actually worse with one of them. I switched from android when I first noticed them doing stuff to my phone(cmd like boxes popping up, them knowing about photos in my phone and the phone itself attempted to put in passcodes on the lock screen which did a factory reset while I was at work).

So yeah, I made that precaution to change my password long time ago. Thanks though.

 

[NostalgiaGuy]

Hello everyone, I just came across a terrifying discovery of what I am going through. There's an umbrella term called "Gang Stalking" that exactly describes my situation.

"Predatory Gangstalking is an umbrella term describing a series of techniques utilized by organized crime and corrupt networks to instill mental instability within a victim with the intent to discredit, sabotage, harass, extort and even drive a victim to suicide.

Techniques such as mind games, perception manipulation, organized stalking, covert harassment, constant surveillance and even worse, electronic harassment are used to push a victim to mental instability.

This optimized combination of techniques forms a type of psychological warfare presently used by organized crime and corrupt networks in business and government. The fact that proving one’s targeting can be very challenging and also that there is very little law enforcement support and training allows predatory gangstalking to be extremely effective and covert.

A victim of predatory gangstalking can have their reputation, credibility, careers, relationships and entire life put into ruins; even being pushed to suicide."



I don't know what to do. The several episodes that extended outside the family over the past five years has been evident of this. I feel so exposed, trapped and alone. It literally says that the authorities can't do anything about this and my church members have betrayed me, where do I go with this? Help please?