A woman on TikTok documented her experience of allegedly being hacked after noticing strange things on her iPhone. TikToker Alexandra Elizabeth (@alexxs1007) shared a series of videos revealing how she found out she was hacked. However, at the end of the saga, viewers were left with more questions than answers.
In Alexandra’s initial video, she shares how ChatGPT was able to figure out she was hacked when the Geek Squad couldn’t. She says she did several “tests” ChatGPT asked her to do on the computer and uploaded the results to the AI. Sure enough, according to the chatbot, she confirmed she was hacked.
She claims the hacker removed all the gaming software from her PC and reinstalled it with a virus. Alexandra says they hacked her modem from Xfinity as well. In a follow-up clip, Alexandra says her Amazon Music account was wiped clean and her Alexas were removed from the account.
The nightmare doesn’t end there.
“Someone is in my phone,” Alexandra says near the end of the clip. “I’m watching them do things in my phone. I’m not lying.”
What’s wrong with her iPhone?
Then Alexandra’s hacked debacle takes a creepy turn. The creator says she needs to go to Apple because she noticed something strange on her iPhone. AT&T recommended she go directly to the phone manufacturer because this was “above us.”
She says her phone’s font size and color were constantly changing. Perhaps the most disturbing incident was Alexandra noticing her tabs in her Safari app had a brand-new one she had never seen before.
“[Apple] couldn’t explain it to me and why it was there,” she says. Alexandra shares a screenshot of her tabs, where she shows her normal and Private tabs. However, to the far right, was a new tab labeled “Used nice mom.”
She also shows viewers how the Apple worker couldn’t remove a password in her settings under “attwifi,” which she says was never there before. Alexandra also says her TikTok email was changed to someone else’s. Lastly, she noticed the Camera app in the App Store wasn’t downloaded onto her phone, yet her iPhone already had the “Camera” app on there.
In one of her videos, Alexandra says her home and garage were broken into on two separate occasions, and she implies that those incidents are connected to her getting hacked.
Some viewers are skeptical
Several viewers were terrified for Alexandra, urging her to file a police report or even move out. The fact that her house was broken into, coupled with what she says has been happening to her iPhone, has folks spooked. However, not everyone thinks a hacker would go to those lengths for a regular Jane Doe.
One user who says he is “familiar” with cybersecurity was doubtful.
“Unless you’re not a super important person to somebody, 1.) no hacker would make the effort and bypass a third party AV, because this would be insanely difficult,” they wrote. “2.) ChatGPT could have been hallucinating and agreed to your suspicions because it’s designed to be helpful and compliant. 3.) If a professional cybersecurity team like Geek Squad is telling you that there is nothing wrong, then it’s most likely true. 4.) you should run scans with reliable AV’s like Kaspersky, Bitdefender, Malwarebytes, Avast etc.”
Another echoed, “It’s highly unlikely you’re being targeted at this level, more likely your son’s doing something on your home network he shouldn’t.”
A viewer claiming to be a senior in IT said, “ChatGPT loves to hallucinate details. And does so with confidence. This whole story sounds like a paranoid psychosis. Absolutely no reason for someone to type words and change font.”
@alexxs1007 Replying to @Shan.esthi Apple Update #chatgpt #iphonehack @apple @TikTok @chatgpt ♬ original sound – Alexandra Elizabeth
Is ChatGPT reliable for stuff like this?
Does ChatGPT hallucinate? Well, while ChatGPT can be very helpful, OpenAI has disclosed that the chatbot isn’t always accurate.
“ChatGPT is designed to provide useful responses based on patterns in data it was trained on. But like any language model, it can produce incorrect or misleading outputs,” OpenAI states. “Sometimes, it might sound confident—even when it’s wrong.”
When this occurs, it’s called a hallucination. But is this just a boilerplate disclaimer, or is it actually true?
According to a New York Times article from March, these “hallucinations” are getting more powerful.
“There is still no way of ensuring that these systems produce accurate information,” the article states. “On one test, the hallucination rates of newer A.I. systems were as high as 79 percent.”
So while ChatGPT can be extremely helpful in everyday life, it’s still important to keep in mind that it was made by humans, therefore liable to mistakes.
OpenAI suggests to:
- Use ChatGPT as a first draft, not a final source
- Always verify quotes, data, or technical information
- Use available tools like search or deep research
- Encourage critical thinking
What to do if you think you’ve been hacked
However, if you think you have been hacked, there are some steps you can follow. PCMag recommends checking your credit card transactions, as that’s usually the first thing hackers target. The site says your friends getting “weird” phone calls from your number is another sign.
If your email has been hacked, “Contact the email provider to prove you’re the account holder,” per PCMag. “It’s important to have multiple email addresses and make each the alternate contact address for the other. Just be very sure you don’t use the same password for both.” The article recommends a powerful password manager.
The Federal Trade Commission also has a site to guide you on how to recover from identity theft.
To prevent another hack in the future, PCMAg advises to avoid shopping at “shady retailers,” both IRL and online. The author also warns against filling out information on web forms when they aren’t necessary. Lastly, they suggest getting a shredder for paper bills and statements.
The Mary Sue reached out to Alexandra and Apple via email.
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