Unlock Your iPhone Entirely
Let’s start with the worst. Technically, using your iPhone should be very, very hard for thieves. Even if they can somehow get past your lock screen, they’ll need to have your Apple account login to make any major changes, like resetting your phone back to factory conditions. But thieves have developed a couple of ways around this.
The first is using a phishing service or attempting to phish on their own. This only works if the thieves also have your name or your contact information along with your stolen phone, like if they stole your wallet or purse, too. Then they can send a text, email, or voice message to you, pretending to be Apple or a security service. Again, these messages are created by phishing services around the world and can look surprisingly authentic. The goal is to get you to provide your iCloud account login and/or passcode with the promise that they can track and protect your stole phone.
The second option is to break the SIM cards out of your iPhone and put it into a new, usable iPhone without your passcode, then finding your email address by looking at your social media pages and other online information. From here, they try to get your iCloud account password. If it’s something simple like your phone number or, you know, “12345” then they can unlock your phone. It’s less likely to work, but they don’t need any extra services or information to try it.
With that login info, unlocking your phone is easy. Then thieves can explore any unprotected apps looking for financial information, any credit card details you may have noted, and more. If they have your iCloud keychain info, they also have any passwords you’ve stored there, including bank account passwords and more. And, of course, access to your social media accounts, any photos or videos you have saved to your iPhone, and anything in your cloud accounts, etc.
Once thieves are finished with the phone, they can use your iCloud account to reset it to factory settings, and then try to trade or sell it (more on this later).
There are several ways to avoid this worst-case scenario. First, always use robust passwords, created from a password manager if possible. Second, use eSIM cards instead of physical SIM cards, so it’s harder to steal them.
If you think your iPhone has been stolen, IMMEDIATELY go to Find My and activate the Lost Mode for your iPhone. This not only displays a warning message, but suspends payment cards and other services until you switch it off, and disables most of the capabilities we discuss below.