iPhones have a feature that lets you regain access to your Apple ID account when all other methods fail: the recovery key. If this seems very practical at first glance, a hacker only needs to know your PIN to prevent you from connecting and therefore protect your important data.
Despite Apple doing its best to protect its smartphones from malicious attacks, sometimes hacking an iPhone is a lot easier than you might think. We especially remember this Brazilian gang who prided himself on being able to unlock any iPhone just by removing the SIM card. Another similar technique was spotted by the Wall Street Journal, which does not require any advanced technical skills.
According to the American newspaper, all the hacker needs is the PIN code used by his victim. All he has to do is throw a few thoughtless glances over his shoulder, then take advantage of a moment of inattention to steal the smartphone from his hand. After doing that, all it has to do is use a security feature introduced by Apple in 2020.
Hacking an iPhone is a breeze with this security option
This functionality is the famous “recovery key”. Concretely, it’s a string of 28 randomly generated characters that allows you to reset your Apple ID account password when no other method is available. Useful, but there’s one change: Apple disables account recovery entirely when a recovery key is generated.
As you can see, a hacker who unlocks an iPhone can easily prevent his victim from logging into his Apple ID account by simply changing his password and generating a recovery key. Therefore, it is impossible for him to recover and save all his important data.
“We sympathize with the people who have gone through this misfortune and take all attacks on our users, albeit rare, very seriously”said an Apple spokesperson. “We work tirelessly every day to protect our users’ accounts and data, and we are always looking for additional protections against emerging threats like this.”
Source : wall street diary
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