Brazilian police explain how thieves steal bank details from stolen phones

　　Sina Digital News on the morning of July 8, a report in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo last month mentioned that criminals stole iPhones in the local area to access the bank accounts of the lost owners, not just to resell these phones. Now, the police seem to have finally figured out how they gain access to bank accounts, and the process is so simple.

　　Sao Paulo police have arrested a gang specializing in smartphone thefts, and the criminals have confessed how they cracked Apple devices.

　　At first, it was believed that the thieves used some exploit or other advanced methods (such as professional tools such as Cellebrite) to unlock the stolen iPhone, but the whole process is much simpler than that. The police chief revealed that the criminals only needed one tool to access all the data of the device: the SIM card in the iPhone.

　　The thieves remove the SIM card from the stolen iPhone and put it in another phone. By logging into social networks such as Facebook and Instagram through the phone number, they can easily find the email address used by the person whose phone was stolen. In most cases, the user also uses this common email as Apple ID. All they need to do is reset the Apple ID password using the owner's phone number.

　　Police said people's awareness of prevention is actually weak. The easiest way for criminals to find passwords is to check iPhone notes, where many users store bank and credit card passwords. In addition, by accessing iCloud accounts, they can also easily obtain all passwords from iCloud keychain.

　　When they download the data from the cloud to the new device, they search for information associated with the word "password," which they say usually gives them the information they need to access the victim's bank account. Once they have that information, they return the SIM card to the victim's phone and hand the device over to the gang member responsible for stealing the bank account.

　　One of the arrested suspects is a 22-year-old computer technician who told police that they instructed criminals to obtain passwords from stolen smartphones. Sao Paulo police have arrested 12 people and have identified another 28 suspected criminals in the theft of smartphones. However, police do not rule out the possibility that some gangs can use more sophisticated tools to unlock victims' iPhones.

　　Following the Folha de S. Paulo report, Apple promised Brazilian media that it would make it easier for users to delete all data from stolen iPhones. However, the company did not elaborate on what exactly it would implement.

　　In iOS 15, users will finally be able to use the Find My app to track a turned-off iPhone.

　　Of course, the best practice for protecting your account is not to store passwords in notes or other non-secure applications. Another good option is to use an eSIM virtual card instead of a physical SIM card, as eSIM cards cannot be easily transferred to other devices.

　　Previously, there was also an article in China that detailed how criminals could use mobile phone numbers to reset account passwords and enter bank accounts after stealing mobile phones. In the information age, mobile phone numbers are basically equivalent to ID cards, and many passwords can be reset by receiving verification codes.