Scamwatch: 'My Apple account has been compromised'
Faye was Headline Money Consumer Money Journalist of 2023 and a Wincott Award finalist in 2025. She's been investigating scams for nearly a decade.
Dear Which?,
I keep receiving an alarming pop-up message on my iPhone, which reads: ‘8 issues have been detected on your iPhone. Your iOS system is currently 72% compromised. If the system continues to degrade, it will cause your device to crash and lose all data within two minutes. Please click the button below for instructions on resolving all issues.’
It worries me greatly, and I don’t know whether it’s genuine. What should I do to secure my account?
A Which? member
Faye Lipson, Which? senior researcher, says:
As worrying as it may seem, these are often not real pop-ups at all, but adverts that appear on your device when using certain apps or websites.
These scam messages are designed to spook Apple device owners into compromising their accounts. Variations of these scams have been circulating for years and target both iPhone and Mac users, but we’ve seen a flurry of new reports to our Scam Sharer tool.
The scams are carefully designed to look like genuine messages from the Apple operating system (iOS). To enhance the deception, they may have a background that looks like a typical home screen of a phone, with rows of popular apps in the background.
In other cases, these scams are an email, text message or even a phone call.
In this particular case, clicking through from the message will prompt you to enter your Apple account login details (known as Apple ID). Giving this information away could prove devastating, allowing cybercriminals to potentially take over all your Apple devices, lock you out and use your payment info.
If you think you’ve been hacked, or if you receive a warning claiming to come from Apple, don’t trust any links, phone numbers or contact details in the message. Instead, go directly to support.apple.com using your browser's address bar, and follow the instructions to secure or regain your account.
Consider uninstalling any apps that allow scam adverts like these to be shown on their platform. Conventional wisdom is that Apple devices never need antivirus software. While relatively few viruses are designed for Apple operating systems, they can still be infected with viruses or malware.
Which? Tech Support members can get bespoke guidance to help secure their account, or take a look at advice from our experts on the best antivirus software on Apple devices.
