Appletv Possibly Hacked

Are you all sharing the same Apple ID? Should be able to narrow down which one made the purchase

That's what I did and no do not share the account. Contacted Apple and they refunded me, but really curious as to how this person achieved this. I know purchasing an app requires a two part authentication. Plus I changed the password to my Apple account about a year ago and nobody would be able to guess what it is.

It was very strange seeing somebody else watching our Apple account

I have known people who went on vacation, used their credentials to log into streaming services on the TV, and then forgot to log out leaving their account available for the next person who rented the house.

While I have done that for espn and Netflix, never for appletv. I’ve only had it twice in my life and cancelled after the show I watched ended. Last time I had it was in April of this year and cancelled at end of month. Didn’t have a May charge and all of a sudden got an email stating I had been charged for Apple services. When I logged into my Apple account I saw it was for Appletv. Then once I entered the app is when I saw that somebody was watching Widow’s bay and was halfway through the 3rd ep. Few hours later they were on ep 5

Have you had any new issues after resetting password?

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I have done that and it’s only my home appletv, my iPhone, my extra iPhone that in my side tv cabinet for pandora use only and my kids iPad (does not have appletv app). Confirmed kid didn’t do it because he doesn’t have app. Plus apple always has a 2 part authentication which makes this even more confusing

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Only thing I would add to the above is asking if the iPad is signed into your account at device’s iCloud or Apple account login?

If it is set as a trusted device (under settings/Apple account) it is able to receive account verification codes and likely could be set to approve what happened (you still should have seen a verification pop up on your device but I am not sure if it stays once another device approves). You can limit Face ID or Touch ID from approving purchases, but the device password can still access passwords to approve (device password can be used in certain instances as well). If signed in like this it could also have access to passwords you have saved & stored in the password app.

Having a device logged into your Apple account like above can also automatically log you into that Apple account with pre-installed Apple apps.

For example deleting the Apple TV app that is on a device that is using your Apple account as device’s main Apple account and then reinstalling Apple TV app from App Store will automatically log back in to your Apple account on the Apple TV app without being prompted for 2nd authorization as device already authorized. It doesn’t even ask for password and just logs the app into the device’s apple account automatically when you open the app.

Redownloading the Apple TV app from App Store could depend on settings for free or previously purchased apps (and if restrictions set to limit any changes to those settings), but since it’s free and pre-installed I think default settings allow for the Apple TV app to be redownloaded after deletions without password or override as well.

You aren’t supposed to be able to hide the Apple TV app due to being pre-installed, but I am not sure if that was always the case or dependent on iOS versions. You could check there as well just to make sure. Also make sure the app wasn’t just removed off the Home Screen but still in App Library.


If it ends up being from your kid’s device I would look into starting a family group and creating a child’s profile with appropriate restrictions as the main Apple account on your kid’s device instead of using yours. You can share purchases or by app selectively log into your account instead of setting up your account as the main Apple account for the device and sharing all your stuff with it.