Android Users Are In As Much Of A Danger As Apple Users To This Crime
A report from the last week’s wall street journal showed us the hidden method that thieves are now using to steal iPhones, the report sounded an alarm on the obvious yet effective and serious problem that would allow a thief to steal and gain access to the iPhone’s apple ID, and ultimately allow the person to take over your apple account which can then be used for nefarious purposes. But this method is not inclusive to iOS devices only.
This means that iPhones are in as much danger as Android users. It goes to show that your Google account can be taken in the same way, and your Google account could be compromised if a criminal stole your Android pin and phone, but there are always the safety and precautionary measures that you can take to protect yourself and your data.
Once the criminals get their hands on the apple account, they then start to access other accounts that are linked with your Apple ID, so the iPhone users who had their phones stolen only to see their apple account compromised, the password changed, and further accounts, including bank accounts, accessed as well. These were not the cases of advanced hacks, the methods involved are rather simple and easy to understand, it’s only a security loophole.
Using the PIN code on iPhone, the criminal who stole the device was able to access the device normally and was able to change the password for all the accounts on that phone since the criminal had access to it. This was done without knowing any password other than the PIN code that was used to access the iPhone in the first place.
If you’re wondering, how was the person able to do this? Then there is a simple answer to your question, iPhone users can change their account passwords by using the PIN code that has been set up on the device and in this case, getting the pin was as easy as watching the user input the pin code once, or somehow tricking the phone owner into sharing the user’s pin.
Wall street journal’s Joanna stern used the scenario of “the fog of a late-night bar scene full of young people, where predators befriend their victims and maneuver them into revealing their passcodes” as an example, or he used this as a scenario where this could happen, so keep this in mind whenever you go out to attend some plans. And further, some of the criminals who used this method enabled Apple’s recovery key feature, for the reason that it would be effective in locking users out of their accounts without the stolen iPhone, once again, they found a loophole in the security system.
This can also happen on android phones as all the criminal is going to need is a PIN and they will be able to change your Google account password. Mishall Rehman on Twitter highlighted how this would work on Twitter, with an option in Google account settings to use your android Phone’s screen lock to change the account password.
Google permits this as the password change request is coming from “your” device, but there is no further verification beyond your PIN. Google’s process notably prompts you to first input your current password first but using the “Forgot Password” option allows the PIN of your device to be used in its place.
This is concerning as this means that a stolen smartphone could mean losing all your data with it, which is exactly what smartphone companies and tech giants like Apple have been working on for a long time now, and the frightening part is that this method is applicable on android devices too, however, it was noted that the main target for this crime seems to revolve around iPhones so Android users are less targeted as the criminals try to hold on to the higher resale value in the United States.
It has been stated that 99% of the cases seen by a detective were of iPhones. This doesn’t necessarily means that Android users should be carefree and they should believe that they aren’t being targeted, it only means that it is less likely to happen to an android user than an iPhone user, but it’s still likely to happen so make sure you use your Finger Print as your prioritized security feature whenever you’re outside and you can also change your PIN code to alpha-numeric passcode which will also help.
