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CYBER

How Hackers Break into iCloud-Locked iPhones

CYBER

VICE

Tech News, News & Politics, Technology, News

4645 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2019

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In spring, 2017, a teenager walked up behind a woman leaving the Metro in Northeast Washington DC and put her in a chokehold: "Be quiet," he said. And "delete your iCloud." He grabbed her iPhone 6S and ran away.


The iCloud security feature has cut down on the number of iPhones that have been stolen, but enterprising criminals have found ways to remove iCloud in order to resell devices. To do this, they phish the phone’s original owners, or scam employees at Apple Stores. Thieves, coders, and hackers participate in an underground industry designed to remove a user’s iCloud account from a phone so that they can then be resold.


Motherboard Editor-in-Chief Jason Koebler and senior staff writer Joseph Cox spent the last few months diving into the notably complicated world of “iCloud Unlocks” and the ways in which it involves not only physical and cybercrime, but also the otherwise legitimate independent iPhone repair industry.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Tann, it's got the code it's going to launch.

0:11.0

It's a Unix system.

0:13.0

I know this.

0:15.0

It's all the files of the whole park.

0:17.0

It tells her everything.

0:19.0

Sir, he's uploading the virus.

0:21.6

Eagle One, the package is being delivered.

0:24.6

In spring 2017, a teenager walked up behind a woman,

0:27.6

leaving the metro in northeast Washington, D.C. and put her in a chokehold.

0:31.6

Be quiet, he said, and delete your iCloud.

0:34.6

He grabbed her iPhone's success and ran away. The iCloud's security feature

0:39.3

has cut down on the number of iPhones that have been stolen, but enterprising criminals have found

0:44.2

ways to remove iCloud in order to resell devices. To do this, they fish the phone's original owners,

0:50.6

or scam employees at Apple stores. Thieves coders and hackers participate in an underground industry

0:56.0

signed to remove a user's ICloud account from a phone so that they can then resell them.

1:01.0

Hundreds of millions of us use Find My iPhone to find our phone

1:06.0

when it's just lost in the couch or maybe left at Starbucks,

1:10.0

but also when it's been stolen.

1:12.1

And now with activation lock,

1:14.4

if a thief tries to turn off, find my iPhone,

1:18.2

they will not be able to reactivate it

1:21.0

because they don't know your iCloud username.

...

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