How To Prevent Watch-And-Grab iPhone Theft

If you are worried that someone can watch you enter your passcode on your iPhone and then steal your iPhone from you, then here's how to protect yourself.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to avoid a watch and grab iPhone theft. 
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So recently people have been talking about a particular type of iPhone theft. This is where somebody watches you in a public place until they see you enter the passcode on your iPhone. Then they look for an opportunity to snatch your iPhone away and then use your passcode to get into it. They then go in and change all sorts of things including, possibly, your Apple ID password and perform basic identity theft. Getting into your passwords, your Apple account, all sorts of things. Now there are some basic safety precautions you can take to avoid this. But first, let's acknowledge how rare this is. The report mentions possibly a couple of hundred instances over the last two years. So that's less than the chances of you getting hit by lightning which happens somewhere about 400 times per year in the United States alone. Plus, let's also acknowledge how risky this is as a form of identity theft. Actually being present and putting yourself in physical danger or danger of getting caught just to get into somebody's accounts. Identity theft is usually carried out from afar. Somebody breaking in to some online systems or guessing people's passwords not even in the same country as you. So I'm not sure why somebody would take all that risk to get one identity when they could probably do a lot better just sitting in a basement somewhere far away. 
But, there are some precautions you can take and these are all good security ideas nevertheless. The first is to use Face ID or Touch ID with your phone. Now a lot of people have the wrong idea about Face ID and Touch ID thinking that it is less secure. Movies and TV shows have us thinking that people could steal a phone and use a picture to break in or somehow hold the phone in front of your face and it would unlock it. But it is now that easy. Now somebody could actually take physical control over you and force you to unlock your phone. But that works with Face ID, Touch ID, your passcode, your front door lock, everything. Also, another important thing to realize about Face ID and Touch ID is that they can only get you so far into your phone. They unlock your phone only to a certain level. To perform higher level tasks, like for instance changing your Apple ID password you need the passcode. So using Face ID or Touch ID is really a combination. You are using one of those two methods and you're still using your passcode to go up a level in security to do certain things on your phone. There is another reason to use Face ID or Touch ID. It allows you to have a longer passcode. If you have a long passcode it's going to be a real pain to use it all the time every time you want to use your phone or do almost anything on it. But, if you can use Face ID or Touch ID to do most things and then you need your passcode only for higher security level things then maybe having a six, seven, eight or longer digit passcode will work for you. 
So let me show you. Here I'm going to go into Settings on my iPhone. Let's say I want to go and try to change my Apple ID. Now, I've unlocked this phone using Face ID. I never entered my passcode. So if I go into my Apple ID and I go to Password & Security and I get to this screen and then say Let's change the password, you see  it is going to prompt me for my passcode. So Face ID only got me so far. I actually need my passcode to change my Apple ID password. There are tons of examples of this in Settings. For instance, if I go down to Face ID & Passcode here you see that in order to even access this part of Settings I need to enter my passcode. Face ID wasn't good enough to get me past this point. Now once you are in here notice that there is a Setting for Rewire Attention for Face ID. So this is what prevents somebody from using say a picture of you from getting into your iPhone. Now chances are they wouldn't be able to use a picture anyway. But this makes it even tougher. This will actually look for a real face that is actually paying attention to the phone to unlock it. 
In addition, there's another Setting at the bottom of this that you should look at, Erase Data. If you turn this On then only ten failed passcode attempts in a row will erase the phone. So if somebody gets your phone and thinks they may be able to guess your passcode. Well, unless  they can do it in ten attempts or less they won't be able to get in. The phone will be erased and all your data will be gone. 
 
Now let's go up here to Change Passcode. So notice if I want to change the passcode I need my passcode to do that. Again, Face ID is not good enough. Now once I'm past that first screen it allows me to enter in a new passcode. But there are passcode options. So you can go to that and you could use the old four-digit numeric code. Definitely do NOT use that. That's not secure enough. Instead, Custom Numeric Code will allow you to have more than four digits. So you can go to six, seven, eight, nine digits. However many you want. Of course, don't make them something obvious like all ones or 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Make it a good code, write it down somewhere on a piece of paper until you are sure you have memorized it and will never forget it. Of course don't carry that piece of paper around with you. Have it somewhere secure at home. That's the main thing you can do. Have a longer code. The watch and grab theft isn't going to work very well if the code is too long.
You can also go to an alphanumeric code. If you do that then it changes to a regular keyboard and now you have basically a password of Upper and Lower Case letters, Symbols, and Numbers instead of just numbers. This makes it so much harder to guess the passcode. Plus, of course, if you're typing on this little keyboard it is going to make it so much harder for somebody else to be able to see what passcode you're entering in. But also, of course, make this strong as well. Don't make it like the name of your dog or something like that. Make it something that's random and hard to guess. 
Finally, the other thing you can do to protect yourself is simply be very aware of your surroundings when you're out in public. Don't enter your passcode in a way where somebody else can see it. By using Face ID and Touch ID you should rarely have to enter in your passcode in public. For just checking your apps you could just use Face ID to open it up. But if you do need to go into something where you enter in your passcode then look around, make sure you hold your iPhone close to you and that nobody else can oversee what you're doing. In other words, just basic common sense. 
So there are three steps to make it virtually impossible for somebody to pull off a watch and grab on you. Use Face ID or Touch ID when in public. Make your passcode something longer than usual or a full password, and watch when you do have to enter your passcode in public to make sure nobody else can see you do it. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 2 Responses to “How To Prevent Watch-And-Grab iPhone Theft”

Morris

2 years ago

I could be wrong, but I believe the real problem with the watch and grab iPhone theft is that once you know the passcode you can change the apple id password since that process only requires the iphone passcode, not the current apple id password also. Once the apple id is changed the original owner cannot ever get back into that icloud account again and all that data is gone forever.

Gary Rosenzweig

Morris: Yes, which is why using Face ID in public is better since you can't change your Apple ID with just Face ID (and a thief wouldn't have your face anyway). I think you have some recourse if someone steals your Apple ID, but it depends on the situation. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204145

Comments Closed.

How To Prevent Watch-And-Grab iPhone Theft

Comments: 2 Responses to “How To Prevent Watch-And-Grab iPhone Theft”

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