thehatfoxNearly two-fifths of robberies in London last year were for mobile phones
rippersnapperGenuine question, don’t both iPhones and Androids lock out users if they’re unable to provide the password? In that case are most of these stolen phones sold for parts?
That’s a feature to protect user data not to prevent the phone being reused. Wipe the device and it’s brand new (unless the device ID is reported and the phone blacklisted by the networks somehow, but that relies on the owner and the authorities being faster than the thieves, I’d imagine).
nanometerYou can’t wipe an iPhone that’s locked to an ICloud ID without the password of the account
If you have physical access to a device you can eventually do whatever you want with it, depends how organised the thief is
frazorthI would be curious to learn more, as this is a much touted security feature. If it’s that easy to bypass then we need to understand the limitations.
Do you have any more information on this?
The usual tactic is to send a phishing text to a number that calls it pretending to be Apple. They then get your Apple ID credentials and use that to unlock the device.
blakeAs usual, people are the weakest link in security.
Exactly. The protections on the iPhone themselves are actually very strong for the time the phone released in. Unless you've got NSA-level hardware hackers in your org, this is by far your best bet.
Very much depends on your threat model. An iPhone is great if you trust Apple with the backdoor to your phone, if not then you’re probably much more secure with GrapheneOS.
I mean yeah, obviously Apple isn't going to be able protect you much against a state-sponsored threat with their own private list of zero days, or Apple itself, but right now that's a small amount of people either are truly interested in fucking over.
How do you send a phishing text to a phone you have stolen? The owner would either not get the text, or get it via iMessage which the response wouldn’t appear on the stolen phone. I’m not following this tactic, so I’m obviously missing something.
The owner tries to call the number from another phone, usually a mobile.
So the owner calls the phone, which is answered by the thief who pretends to be Apple?
Interesting.
They don't necessarily have to answer. They can just note the number that appears on-screen