My iPhone starts playing random audio which is not from me, without any Apps open

[Silly John Fatty]

At this point I'm wondering if I've been hacked, or what exactly is happening here.

I keep getting an audio being played back on my iPhone 13 mini (latest iOS), completely randomly, out of nowhere!

The audio is a 30 or so seconds sample of a song (one that I never listened to anywhere, and I don't even have music on my iPhone) and you can hear the keyboard typing sound on top of it. It's a recording of that song with someone typing over it, in a 20-30 seconds loop.

This keeps coming back … out of absolutely nowhere.

To stop it, I can only restart the iPhone. I could close all apps – it doesn't change anything, it keeps playing it. Control center doesn't show any audio being played.

You can imagine the problem when you're with people and this starts playing while it shouldn't. So I have to make sure my iPhone is always on silent. And with my last iPhone randomly increasing the volume to maximum out of nowhere while just sitting on my table, you can imagine the dilemma. 😂 What if something else was played, something nasty, with the volume suddenly changed to maximum, during a presentation?

I don't have the volume increasing problem on this iPhone anymore. But still. Apple is more and more a trash company. A third world company with a gucci belt. What is this sh**? 😂

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Some addition details:

- FaceTime audio calls on my iPhone don't work with anyone anymore. FaceTime audio is still available on my iPad, Mac and AW but not on my iPhone. The symbol to call someone like this is just missing in the Contacts app. When someone calls me, it just rings forever.

- I wanted to enable iCloud.com web access from my iPhone (I had it deactivated) and Apple's website has the possibility to click a button to send you a notification on your devices, to get the link to System Preferences where you can activate iCloud.com web access. The notification arrived on my devices, except my iPhone.

It looks like something is wrong with my iCloud and it may be linked to this shady audio being played. I believe someone hacked me …

 

[Helmsley]

The only answer to this is a full device reset.

You should change your passwords, too, BUT, do it after doing the full device reset just incase something malicious watches you change the passwords. Also, enable two-factor authentication.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

The only answer to this is a full device reset. Change your passwords, too.

Yes, that's definitely my plan. But before I'm doing this, I'm trying to figure out what exactly is causing it.

Isn't there something like Activity Monitor for the iPhone? I wish I could see every process somewhere. Then I could see what's triggering this.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

I found the culprit! It's an app called Sports & TCG.

It's an app that claims to rate the value of Pokemon cards and such. I downloaded it at some points because I have decades old Pokemon cards that I wanted to run through this app.

As soon as I open the app, the audio I described starts playing.

Now the question is: Why does it play it randomly without me ever opening the app?

It's a spy app I believe … it's apparently offered/developed by someone named "Tran Thi Hanh".

I reported the app.

That was very untypical for me because I don't have any other apps installed on my iPhone except things like Word, Excel, Philips apps, Kindle or Visa. I never install such trashy apps but I guess it was my fault. And I'll never install **** like that again.

That's the proof that the App Store is full of crap these days. There's no control as to what is being offered. It's fine, it was my fault. They should still be stricter with these controls.

 

[neutrino17]

I had a similar issue for a while. One of my devices started playing music I didn’t own. Turned out to be the neighbor trying to airplay music to her speakers somehow got to my device instead. I think I changed permissions to stop it.