## **Texting pretending to have picked up the phone, impersonating the company is a trick of the thieves group after successful stealing and want to get access, reset the phone to sell for money.** Day 3 April 4, Seoul Metro Police Department, South Korea has just announced the arrest of 15 people, including a Vietnamese citizen who illegally immigrated, on suspicion of stealing mobile phones and smuggling them into Vietnam. The stolen devices were purchased for 200,000 won ($156) and made a profit of about 18 million won through smuggling them to Vietnam from July 2021 to March this year. South Korean police said that in order to reinstall stolen devices to sell them, the suspects sent text messages to the owners of the phones. They claim to have found the phone, and send a link to the phone’s current location. Keeping the gullible mentality, the victims immediately provided login information to be able to view the location map to redeem the phone. ## Old trick, new victim In fact, this is not a new scam from criminal groups. Called smishing, this scam uses messages containing links like malicious websites to get victims to reveal personal information. After using the phishing message, the perpetrators will easily reinstall the devices and smuggle them to other countries through retailers and import agents. Many other users around the world have also encountered similar tricks. In 2019, among more than 200 people who lost their iPhones during the annual Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago (USA), many were victims of texting scams. Speaking to the local newspaper *CWBChicago*, an unnamed victim said he received a message that appeared to be trustworthy with a link quite similar to Apple’s Find My iPhone homepage. But she didn’t realize this website was just a scam until she entered her login information and was robbed of access to her iPhone account, losing all the data inside. “I clicked on the link to show the phone’s location information, then it took me to the ‘Find My iPhone’ page. I entered my personal credentials as usual. But then, I received a message saying that someone in Portage, Indiana had access to my Apple ID and all the data on the phone was wiped out after only 2 minutes, “the girl recalled. ## Using Apple ID is not necessarily safe In fact, unlike Android phones, stealing and erasing iPhone data is not simple. The “Find My” feature makes it impossible for bad actors to reinstall or “reuse iPhones stolen by the device associated with the old user’s Apple ID. If they don’t log into this account, the iPhone they steal is no different from a brick phone. However, many criminals have managed to circumvent the law by using a user’s SIM card to obtain a phone number, then tricking the victim into providing personal information such as Apple ID accounts and passwords. A Twitter user named Vedant also shared the experience of being scammed when losing iPhone in Delhi, India. The group of robbers took advantage of his panic to text messages to get information just a few days after the incident happened. “Your blue iPhone 12 was found and turned on. See the address at: icloud.findmy.com-map.pm/ktr”, extract the message Vedant received. He immediately clicked on the link and saw the location appear in the area around Safdarjung in Delhi. A message pops up asking to sign in to iCloud shortly after. Vedant was gullible, immediately entering the Apple ID password into a strange website, but this message kept appearing. A few minutes later, an email came in informing that someone had accessed his Apple ID using a browser. Despite trying to change the password and remove the visited browser from the Apple ID system, it was all too late. The group of robbers disconnected his Apple ID and turned off the “Find My” feature on the lost iPhone. “It turns out that the link I received in the message was not from Apple, but from the thief. When I entered the password, it was sent to them so they could sign in with their Apple ID, erase the lost iPhone,” Vedant recalls. Therefore, if you lose your phone, users should be wary of any calls, messages, and emails received, especially requests to log in to any cloud account such as Apple ID, Samsung Cloud, Mi Account. … These can be messages from thieves who want to break into the device to gain access, reinstall the device to sell to merchants.
