Criminals arrested at the end of 2020 intrigued the police, forensic technicians and Brazil's top system security experts by claiming that they could unlock all iPhone models.

A series of reports made by Folha de S. Paulo, since last month, addressed the explosion of this type of crime in the country. This Wednesday (7), the newspaper disclosed how the gang acted.

According to the report, with the arrest of the criminals made by the DEIC (State Department of Criminal Investigations) police officers, the mystery was revealed. The crooks were actually able to unlock all types of iPhones, up to the 11 series (when the gang was arrested, at the end of last year, the iPhone 12 had not yet been released in Brazil).

According to delegate Fabiano Barbeiro, responsible for the gang's arrest, the technique used was much simpler than previously thought. “They didn't have any big iPhone unlocking schemes,” says Barbeiro.

According to the delegate, they just removed the chips from the stolen devices and inserted them into an unlocked device. Then, they searched the victims' social networks to find out which account that line number was linked to.

Then, they searched for the email address that the victim used to backup device content, mainly in iCloud and Google Drive clouds. They were looking for gmail.com extensions first.

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So, when downloading the information from the cloud on the new device, the thieves searched there for any information linked to the word “password”, and, according to the delegate, this way they obtained the access numbers to the cell phone and bank accounts.

Once that was done, the chips were again inserted into the victims' cell phones. With the passwords in hand, the criminals transferred the devices to the member of the gang responsible for accessing the accounts and transferring all possible value to the accounts of oranges.

Gang revealed other iPhone unlocking techniques for bank scams

According to one of the suspects, he learned the technique in the central region of São Paulo, where at least three people teach criminals interested in carrying out bank scams with cell phones. The same man stated that there is a group of Nigerians in the capital of São Paulo known for having many cell phones received and, mainly, for having software capable of unlocking devices (a different method from that revealed by the gang).

According to the police, the scammers prefer to use phones that are already unlocked, paying much higher amounts for what they call “tapas”, which are thefts made by young people on bicycles who take possession of the devices when the victims are distracted, talking or touching the phone. cell.

At this point, the swipers keep it open, triggering camera mode, which prevents automatic locking. Then they turn on airplane mode, preventing tracking.

Regarding banking applications, the Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban) states that “they have a high degree of security from their development to their use, and there is no record of any breach of their security”.

Apple, on the other hand, said it would not comment on this.

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