What Can a Thief Do With a Stolen Iphone

The Brazilian paper Folha de S. Paulo reported terminal calendar month how criminals had been stealing iPhones in Brazil to access people's depository financial institution accounts instead of reselling the devices. Now, the constabulary seem to take finally figured out how they gain access to depository financial institution accounts, and to our surprise, the process seems easier than you lot might think.

Folha de S. Paulo at present reported that Constabulary in São Paulo take arrested one of the gangs that specialize in smartphone theft, and the criminals accept detailed how they crevice the security of Apple devices. One of them fifty-fifty mentions that he tin can "unlock all iPhones, from 5 to 11."

At first, it was believed that the thieves used some exploit or other advanced method (similar Cellebrite's tools) to unlock the stolen iPhones, but the whole thing is much simpler than that. Police Chief Fabiano Barbeiro revealed that criminals demand only a single tool to access all the device'due south data: the iPhone SIM card.

Basically, thieves take the SIM bill of fare out of the stolen iPhone and so put it into another iPhone. Using social networks like Facebook and Instagram, they can easily find out the electronic mail address used by the person who had the telephone stolen. In most cases, this email accost is the aforementioned as the one used for the Apple ID. All they need to practise is reset the Apple tree ID countersign using the victim's phone number.

Barbeiro says that the easiest style criminals take to find passwords is by looking in the Notes app since many users seem to store bank and credit bill of fare passwords in that location. All the same, with access to the iCloud business relationship, they can easily go all the passwords from the iCloud Keychain besides.

When they download information from the cloud to the new device, they search for information linked to the word "countersign" and, co-ordinate to them, they usually get what they need to access the victim's banking company accounts. One time they have this data, they render the SIM bill of fare to the victim's phone and requite the device to the gang member responsible for access the depository financial institution accounts.

One of the suspects arrested is a 22-yr-sometime calculator technician, who told police that he knows at to the lowest degree 3 other people who instruct criminals interested in getting passwords from stolen smartphones. The São Paulo constabulary have arrested 12 people and already identified 28 others who are involved in smartphone theft. Nonetheless, the police do not rule out the possibility that some gangs take access to more than complex tools to unlock the victims' iPhones.

Post-obit the previous report, Apple has promised the Brazilian newspaper that it volition make it easier for users to delete all data from a stolen iPhone. Nonetheless, the company did not give details of what exactly it will implement. With iOS 15, users will finally be able to track a powered-off iPhone using the Observe My app.

And, of course, the all-time thing yous can do to protect your accounts is not to store your passwords in the Notes app or other not-secure apps. Another good option is to only use an eSIM instead of a regular SIM, every bit the eSIM cannot easily exist transferred to another device.

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Source: https://9to5mac.com/2021/07/07/brazilian-criminals-detail-how-they-gain-access-to-bank-accounts-from-stolen-iphones/

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