**EXPERT OPINION NEEDED** Has my iCloud account been hacked? - unauthorized change of iCloud verification phone #

[compromisedapple]

PRE-CURSOR: I have spoken to Apple Customer Service reps in both France and the USA, as well as having been once in communication with a representative for Apple engineers who allegedly received word of my particularly perplexing case. All I ask Internet is that you do your thing and help me get back into my iCloud account because I don't have the brain to think around this potential breach of Apple iCloud's dual-factor authentication security system.

The facts: I purchased a refurbished iPhone 11 in April of 2022 and from the beginning, everything was running smoothly. I transferred my old iPhone data by using the cloud storage associated with my iCloud account, etc. However in August of 2022 I left the USA for a semester abroad, and switched to a French SIM card. Days later on the first of September I received a notification email from iCloud claiming that the primary trusted number for my dual-verification had been changed to a phone number ending in 06, 2 digits of which are not associated with any personal phone number of mine. Obviously, I was not the one who authorized and carried out such a change to my personal security information. Since switching SIM cards I have been unable to verify my identity to access my iCloud account, am being charged monthly for storage I haven't been able to access/utilize for about a year now, and am unsure how to move forward in my pursuit to rescue my personal iCloud account. I have been in consistent communication with the Apple Customer service team and time and time again they run me in circles and even question my ownership of this device for which I have documentation of purchase, all in an effort to avoid admitting their own inability to provide accurate tech support in light of this exceptional case. In the end, the final advice that Apple has left me with is to backup my iPhone to a PC (which requires me to be able to log into iTunes - which might I add is also impossible on my PC given the fact that when the trusted number was changed I was logged out of iCloud on all trusted devices), export my contacts and notes, and then appeal for the removal of an activation lock which would free my device from the iCloud account it perpetually wants to be logged into. This advice fails to acknowledge that a majority of the data I would ideally transfer to a new iCloud account is currently being held captive in my current iCloud. I simply want to know how I can hack my own information back into my hands and either jailbreak my way to the missing digits of this unauthorized verification number or siphon my stored data out of my iCloud without needing to log into it.

Any and all guidance will be greatly appreciated!

 

[J. A.]

Welcome to iPhone Forums!

You’ve already talked to the experts, and we don’t have any other advice we can give. There’s no way to get out of this with a hack or a jailbreak without harming your device.
Which kind of data do you intend to export to a new iCloud account?

 

[carolineM]

Just a thought - SIM cards usually come wIth a random number which you then have to change to yours. Could the …06 number be that one and could it somehow have been picked up by the system as yours? Have you been to an actual physical Apple Store?