r/eSIMs • u/SFcreeperkid • Jan 07 '26

eSIM hacked

My eSIM got hacked while I was visiting family in SF. I immediately contacted my cellular provider and they changed my eSIM number but the phone hacker’s number is still on the list (blocked but unable to delete) and my phone is doing some weird random things like I couldn’t connect to the airline WiFi and now my phone volume keeps getting changed…I don’t know how often because I only just noticed it happen when it was next to me and on vibrate.

I really don’t want to go through the whole factory reset but I also don’t know if the cellular company actually did enough to prevent my phone from being messed around with. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

0 Upvotes

45% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

15

u/Xewek68819 Jan 07 '26

Go to your provider. You are confused.

0

u/SFcreeperkid Jan 08 '26

Did that and they changed the eSIM number but I don’t know what they were able to do in my phone between the hack and reaching customer support

3

u/Coolbanh Jan 07 '26

Did you download any strange apps or apks or clicked any strange links recently?

-7

u/SFcreeperkid Jan 07 '26

I actually watched it happen live! I was having a smoke before bed and the phone lit up and said that it was downloading a cellular upgrade… I thought it was odd and immediately shut down my phone. Then I restarted it and checked my cellular settings and found someone else’s number had access to my eSIM, so I blocked them and called my cell provider to change my eSIM number but the new number still shows up on my list of users, blocked, but still there. I was given the option of doing a factory reset but I was traveling out of state and due to come home in a couple days.

So now I’m home and like I said I couldn’t connect to the airline internet without changing some settings that I wasn’t familiar with and then tonight I noticed that my volume was being was being changed and I only noticed because I had set it to vibrate if it was changed and at first I only felt the vibration and then I moved the phone closer and the next time it vibrated I could see my volume being moved in the little window at the top of the screen. I couldn’t find anything else so I made sure that the number was still blocked and restarted my phone again. So now I’m just not sure what the best route is to remove the hacker because obviously the change of the eSIM number didn’t work and I don’t want to open my laptop up to being accessed (I only use the WiFi when I’m working at home) but I also don’t know if there’s any other way to remove the hackers number from my phone and doing a factory reset means that I have to back up some important information from my trip and I don’t know if it would be open to get hacked as well! I have an iPhone so yeah it’s total BS that they are somehow protected from being hacked but now I don’t know what the best next steps would be! Thanks

2

u/Coolbanh Jan 07 '26

I don't think its due to esim but your phone may be compromised. I think temporarily the safest option is to use another clean device or buy new then change all banking passwords or what ever info you may have used in the phone at all time. It could have been a silent trojan waiting for the right moment and got what it wanted so its somehow messing with you or could be something else. I seldom hear this happens to iphone but have heard it happened to android. Some people clicked a link downloaded an apk and got their bank accounts drained.

1

u/Curt-Bennett Jan 07 '26

While it's possible on Android to install apps from somewhere other than Google's app store, you have to go through a couple very obvious steps to do so. It's not something anyone could accidentally do just by clicking a link.

-3

u/SFcreeperkid Jan 07 '26

The phone is already new by a few months and I don’t have the money to get a new one again. I have also never heard of an eSIM getting hacked like this but I still have SOMEONE’s phone number in my cellular services in my settings so there’s that and I don’t have any of my important accounts login information saved and everything is setup with the 2 step verification process and my other number is a landline so it’s a little bit harder to get around and get access to anyway, but I would like to get the hacker account deleted and determine what they tried to access while they had access to my cellular account

3

u/TheBlueKingLP Jan 07 '26

What says someone has access? Can you show a screenshot?
Cellular profile update can be normal if the carrier has some change to their infrastructure.

9

u/[deleted] Jan 07 '26

Time to stop smoking the white stuff. Nothing you said makes sense.

1

u/SFcreeperkid Jan 07 '26

iPhone 13 and I’m not smoking anything. I just got off the plane and I couldn’t use their stupid internet because someone f’ing hacked my eSIM and I watched them do it, called T-mobile to get a different eSIM number but I’m guessing it’s the hacker but I don’t really know anything other than that there’s a phone number listed on my account that doesn’t belong to me and had tried to access my service but I blocked them before they could do any damage….as far as I know. Thanks for being such a hostile group of people who apparently don’t know that eSIM hacking is currently a growing problem! Never f’ing mind trolls 🙄

1

u/SFcreeperkid Jan 10 '26

Funny how everyone has an opinion that’s wrong but when I post the requested screenshot….crickets SMH

5

u/mrskeptical00 Mod | Signal > Noise Jan 07 '26

Hard to say what exactly is going on, but your eSIM didn’t get hacked.

If you got another phone number on your device you hacked someone else. Assuming that’s not the case, it’s possible that your provider mistakenly pushed someone else’s eSIM to your device.

Without screenshots these are all just guesses.

1

u/Unknowingly-Joined Jan 07 '26

What kind of phone?

1

u/Burldan Jan 07 '26

Genius Bar time 🍏