
But thieves can run into several technical obstacles once they get hold of the phone. IPhones are convenient target for thieves because they're worth hundreds of dollars, plentiful, and easy to carry and hide. “But every method for removing iCloud involves illegal activity.”

“Not every iCloud-locked phone is a stolen device,” RootJunky, an instructor at Phonlab, a company that teaches smartphone repair shops about software-related issues in the industry, told Motherboard. It is generally done in Chinese refurbishing labs and involves stealing a “clean” phone identification number called an IMEI.)Įach of these methods are used to unlock specific devices and resell them, though some methods are far easier and more widely used than others.

DRFONE SC AM PASSWORD
DRFONE SC AM UPGRADE
Making matters more complicated is the fact that not all iCloud-locked phones are stolen devices-some of them are phones that are returned to telecom companies as part of phone upgrade and insurance programs. 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. To do this, they phish the phone’s original owners, or scam employees at Apple Stores, which have the ability to override iCloud locks.

The iCloud security feature has likely 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. This security feature explains why some muggers have been demanding passwords from their victims. Without the owner's password, the original owner's account can't be unlinked from the phone and the device can't be factory reset. A stolen iPhone which is still attached to the original owner's iCloud account is worthless for personal use or reselling purposes (unless you strip it for parts), because at any point the original owner can remotely lock the phone and find its location with Find My iPhone.

An iPhone can only be associated to one iCloud account, meaning that, in order to sell it to someone else (or in order for a stolen phone to be used by someone new) that account needs to be removed from the phone altogether. In 2013, Apple introduced a security feature designed to make iPhones less valuable targets to would-be thieves.
