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Nearly two-fifths of robberies in London last year were for mobile phones (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
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[–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

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.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (1 child)

    The owner tries to call the number from another phone, usually a mobile. The hope is that the phone was misplaced and not stolen.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    So the owner calls the phone, which is answered by the thief who pretends to be Apple?

    Interesting.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago*

    They don't necessarily have to answer. They can just note the number that appears on-screen and text it later from a different device.

    Usually the next step for the owner is to try get into their Apple ID to access the lost phone functions. That's where the texts come in.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    As usual, people are the weakest link in security.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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