Account compromised

[TKBK]

My account was compromised.  At 11pm, June 16 to 5:00am, June 17, my account had 10KB used. I'm old, lol, and was in bed during this time.  Telus is saying they can't see what is being used but can see if it was my handset. I definitely did not use this data.  Can anyone offer me advice, or have this same issue.

[NFtoBC]

Have you checked your handset to see if it recorded data use during that time? It may have downloaded a small update to one of the apps during that time. 10 KB is a tiny, tiny amount of data.

Unless someone transferred their SIM to your account, thereby disconnecting your phone, or have changed your plan to a shared data account, it is pretty much impossible for your account to have been hacked, without the loss of your cell service. Remember, your phone constantly identifies itself to the network through the SIM card.

[rc]

Are you sure you that your phone was not on, if so it can check for updates etc.

[xray]

If someone was to break into your account they would likely use much more than 10KB of data. 

[BrandonT · Accepted solution]

Hi @TKBK ,

I can understand your perspective completely. This is a somewhat common call we receive. The chances anyone other than yourself using data is nearly impossible. In addition the amount of data used (10KB) is very minimal. A single standard picture is around 1000KB. Either someone would have to physically touching your phone while your sleeping, or someone would have need to complete an unauthorized SIM swap which is very hard to do since it requires access to your cellphone to receive a 2-factor authentication token. If someone did have access to your phone to complete a SIM swap, your phone would loose signal to TELUS, and you would be forced to get a new SIM card. This is an extra security feature to ensure there is never more than one SIM attached to one phone number. Once a SIM is swapped, the previous SIM is deactivated with no way to reactivate. If your phone is still working without getting a new SIM card, your SIM was not swapped which is great.

If this has happened multiple times, a easy test you can do is turn your phone off every night before you go to bed. If that solved the problem, there is nothing to worry about.

Data usage while sleeping

Data usage is quite common at all times of the day whether you are awake or sleeping, at home connected to WiFi, and or out shopping. My phone also randomly uses data when I sleep too.

Smartphones automatically connect to the internet in two different ways:

• WiFi (if available)
• Data (if WiFi is not available, or if you turned off the WiFi feature on your phone)
• Sometimes it will use both at the same time if you have the WiFi Assist feature on (usually its enabled by default)

Your phone will always try its best to remain connected to the internet (through WiFi or Data) to ensure you always receive your emails, Facebook notifications, weather updates, and other notifications. That means if your power or WiFi cut out for a few seconds, your phone would automatically switch to data, then check for new emails using a very small amount of data. Or WiFi Assist is enabled which means that your phone will use data when connected to WiFi to increase download speeds. Other times where very little data usage occurs such as 10KB your phone may be communicating with TELUS to update carrier settings, re-activating with Apple, and a variety of other things.

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[TKBK]

Thanks for the assistance, Brandon. Telus has been great and offered additional KB as this was a very rare occurrence. They looked back and saw the history highest use, in over 2 years, was 2KB with the monthly average being 1KB.

I do turn my iPhone to Airplane Mode every night. This was a weird occurrence and here's hoping it never happens again!

Tami

[xray]

If you use Airplane mode every night then consider turning it off completely instead. Unless you use your phone as an alarm clock I see no benefit it leaving it on all night in Airplan mode.