How would a thief have access to my online accounts if I never use my phone to access them?
I have never once in my life gone to a bank account, credit card account, or anything like that from my phone. My phone is for making phone calls and idly accessing news or entertainment sites if I’m bored with nothing else to do.
That’s it.
I’m sure I’m pathetically ignorant and I’d love to have my ignorance fought, bur seriously, saying that a thief would have access to my accounts because my phone was stolen feels like saying a thief would have access to my accounts because my hubcaps or an article of clothing was stolen. How exactly does that work?
If you don’t use banking or shopping apps, or use email or a browser or social media on your phone (as most people now do) then you don’t have much to worry about.
Never lost stolen or locked.
Thing is, I never use it to access any online accounts. Never use the internet on it at all. Oh, I might wiki something once in a blue moon, but that’s about it.
Does every physical component of the iPhone now have some kind of digital fingerprint that marks it as having come from a stolen phone?
Because apparently there was a cellphone kiosk guy in our dying mall (in 2019?) who was busted for buying stolen smartphones parts.
And this certainly happens in Pakistan with some kinds of smartphones. The IMIE (?) is locked out by all carriers but you can use the rest of the components as parts.
Never lost or had one stolen. I did brick one (eventually) by getting it wet. I was canoeing and flipped. I immediately checked my wallet and phone, which I kept in two separate ziplock baggies. Wallet-- dry as a bone. Phone-- baggie half full of water. Did the rice trick, which worked for a while, then the phone just died a month or so later.
Now when I canoe or kayak I keep my phone in a specially made waterproof container with a cord to hang it around my neck.
I dropped my phone getting onto a bus about nine year ago. After I got off the next stop and ran back, the people there told me that a man and a woman had picked it up and walked away with it. They never answered my calls, so I count that as stolen.
I never had one stolen since when not in my hands I keep it in a holster and it’s hard enough for me to take it out let alone someone else trying to steal it.
I will say that my nephew, who was 30 at the time, was standing on a BART station platform using his phone when someone ran up, snatched it out of his hands, and then took off, so I know that stealing phones is a thing. Fortunately, it just hasn’t happened to me (yet).
If the phone has access to your email account, then any service that sends password resets to that email account is as good as hacked. If you have an Android phone and are signed in with your Google account, then the phone has access to your Gmail, even if you don’t ever check your Gmail from the phone. Similar for Apple and your iCloud account.
Of course it’s entirely possible to only use your Google/Apple account to sign into the phone, and don’t use the associate email for anything (that’s what I do for my iPad). Just saying, don’t assume your safe because you don’t check your email from your phone. Somebody else may be able to.
I once had a non-phone Palm Pilot stolen; does that count? It was stolen out of the pocket of an unattended jacket. I thought it was mostly funny, because the out of date Palm Pilot was worth less than £20 (this was in the UK), but the jacket was easily worth more than £150.
I bartended for a long time. We had literally dozens in the lost and found. Shockingly few people came looking for them or even bothered to call/text the phone to see if someone would return it. I think the assumption is always that it was stolen and that it’s not worth looking for it.
On top of that, the second layer of security many sites use is “two-factor authentication” where the bank (or whoever) sends you a code via text you get to enter before getting into the site or changing your password. But this relies on the idea that you’re the one holding and accessing your phone. Which falls apart of anyone can pick up and access your phone.
These are the correct answers. If you have a functioning smartphone, it’s either an Android which is connected to your Google account that is linked with a Gmail email account, or an Iphone that’s linked to an Apple ID that is linked with an Apple email account. And an unlocked phone circumvents two factor verification if one way of verification is your phone number, as @Jophiel mentioned.
Yes, unfortunately it does. Even if you are not subscribed to any other online account with any of your email accounts, at least a thief of your unlocked smartphone could get easy access to all of your email accounts and all the contacts you have there. They could for instance send spoof emails to all of your contacts pretending they were you with shady intents.
Please lock your phone. Mine has a fingerprint sensor, so it takes a fraction of a second to unlock it, but even if yours hasn’t, typing in a 4-digit PIN or swiping a short pattern isn’t much of a hassle.
Had one lifted from my desk at work. Tracked it on Google maps, the phone was about 50 feet from me. Walked over to that area with 3 others, one called my number. Guy looked like a deer in headlights when the phone rang, had no idea what to do. Asked for my phone and he gave it to me. Told him to give me a good reason to not call his manager and company security. I talked to his manager later, said he would put the fear of god into him. Found out my phone wasn’t the first he had stolen. He was cammed (got a corrective action memo in his folder), a week off without pay and was transferred to a crappy job. The only reason he wasn’t fired was his daughter that has severe health issues and really needs her father’s insurance.
Lost one off the rear bumper of the truck when I left Reno for Burning Man. It was in a multi-story parking garage and most likely slid off to get smashed to flinders. In any even it was never heard from again.
Found one, also at Burning Man. I was walking to camp at 1am after a shift when I felt something odd underfoot. Backed up a step, shined the flashlight down and there this flat lump the same color as the playa dust. It was a iPhone so I hadn’t a clue to even see if it was locked and turned in to lost and found the next morning.
No phones stolen but had a Kindle stolen when it was left at the table at a Jack in the Box for a moment. I figure the thief thought it was a tablet and was disappointed when she found out it could only (sneer) do books.