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I've just set up my first iPad, and first Apple device. To be extra cautious when setting it up, I created a brand new @icloud.com username, to use as the Apple ID. The username was 10 characters long, and included random alphanumeric characters. The password was also completely random, and over 12 characters long.

Just one day after setting up the device, I received a message telling me that someone was attempting to sign into a device in another city, with my ID. I obviously selected "Do not allow", but I'm very concerned that this has happened at all.

The ID didn't exist before yesterday, and the only place it has ever been used is on this particular device, and on my secure home network. How is it possible that someone would be trying to use my ID? I really can't believe that someone could have guessed such a unique username.

Does Apple publish their iCloud usernames somewhere?

user1751825
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  • First make sure that the message you have received was actually from Apple, i.e. wasn't a phishing attempt. Then the complexity of your password is irrelevant for this question since the attacker obviously did not succeed in using it. Regarding the complexity of your username: while it is unlikely that someone has correctly guessed the name in order to target you the chance is much higher that some user exist for some randomly generated username, i.e. it might just have been a [coincidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem) that your name was randomly chosen. – Steffen Ullrich Feb 02 '20 at 11:51
  • I'm not very familier with i-devices. However, it wasn't an email, it was a system popup, which appeared while I was viewing AppleTV. So it presumably couldn't have been generated by some dodgy 3rd party app. – user1751825 Feb 02 '20 at 12:14
  • I'm skeptical about coincidence, when dealing with 10 character random alphanumeric strings, given the astronomically large number of possible combinations. I did opt to send diagnostics and usage data to Apple, and App Developers, but I was under the impression this was anonymous.. – user1751825 Feb 02 '20 at 12:37

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