3 ms·
Beating around the bush for the first 70 % of the article about that mystery “basic iPhone feature”. In the end, it’s this: > Groups of two or three thieves wo
by leobg 4y ago
Beating around the bush for the first 70 % of the article about that mystery “basic iPhone feature”. In the end, it’s this:
> Groups of two or three thieves would go to a bar and befriend victims, often asking them to open up Snapchat or some other social-media platform, said Sgt. Robert Illetschko, the lead investigator on the case. During that interaction they would try to observe the victim unlocking the iPhone with the passcode, he said. If they didn’t catch the passcode at first, they might have tried to get the victim to hand them the phone for a photo and then subtly turn it off before handing it back, he added. After an iPhone is restarted, a passcode is required to unlock it.
>“It’s just as simple as watching this person repeatedly punch their passcode into the phone,” said Sgt. Illetschko, adding that sometimes thieves would covertly film victims so they could be sure they caught the correct sequence. “There’s a lot of tricks to get the person to enter the code.”
- flandish 4y agoIn the 80/90’s “phreaking”/“hacking” days we’d call this “shoulder surfing” when snagging someone’s vm/pbx code, etc.
- timr 4y agoThat isn't exactly fair. While shoulder surfing has been around forever, Apple has made it possible to reset everything -- including changing account recovery codes, thus locking you out of your account forever -- by learning a short PIN. Also, some comments on the article indicate that this only happens if you enable 2FA. If you don't enable 2FA, iOS demands your account password before making changes. That's a big deal, and something people should know.
- dijit 4y agoWhat? how can you change anything with the pin? Mine forces me to enter my password if I touch anything under iCloud. The pin can be used to disable ”Find My” though.
- timr 4y agoThe entire article is about how you can change literally everything with the PIN if someone steals it. > Mine forces me to enter my password if I touch anything under iCloud. Do you have 2FA enabled? Like I said, I've seen suggestions that your iCloud pw is required when you don't enable 2FA, but not required if you do. If this is true, it does seem like a vulnerability.
- cassianoleal 4y agoI have 2FA enabled and just confirmed I can change my iCloud password with only the PIN. This is surprising and worrying.