Phone theft epidemic. How to prevent it

The phone theft epidemic has reached pandemic proportions. In the London CBD, over 320 phones a day are stolen by organised thieves.

The phone theft modus operandi is similar. Masked thieves on e-scooters or e-bikes look for phones in use and snatch and grab (a quick, forceful, and unauthorised taking of an item, especially a theft, where the person takes the object and immediately escapes).

It is more prevalent in tourist areas where they often stop to take a photo or consult navigation maps. Thieves are looking for phones in use, as they can keep them open to gain access to accounts and mail.

Phones are like little treasure chests. They’re loaded with plenty of personal data, and we use them to shop, bank, and take care of other personal and financial matters—all of which are of high value to identity thieves.

According to McAfee, less than 7% of stolen phones are recovered despite Apple and Android’s Find My Phone.

What about Australia?

There are no formal statistics, but an Australia-wide estimate is at least 1000 per day. Victorian police reported catching one person with over 200 stolen phones, which he admitted was a week’s work. Australia supports IMEI blocking, and the thief admitted that these would end up as spare parts sold to third-party repairers.

What to do immediately

Borrow another phone and call your Telco. Make sure you have your telco and IMEI number handy wherever you are.

Report it to the police – preferably in person and get a report number for insurance. No report – no insurance. Police seldom investigate phone theft and strongly warn that you should not try to find or approach the thieves. Never respond to a call from a thief offering to sell your phone back.

What else do thieves do with stolen phones?

If the phone is open, they try to use Apple or Google Pay to buy goods costing less than the PIN floor limit. They can later sell stored credit card numbers.

They can perform a factory reset using the manufacturer’s secret back doors, which wipes the device clean.

Each phone has unique IMEI numbers (International Mobile Equipment Identity). But only a small portion reports the theft to agencies that can access the register to block IMEI. Why? Because very few of us have the IMEI number stored off the phone. And because not all countries care about IMEI, and some actively encourage ‘second-hand’ phones regardless of pedigree, to make phones more available cheaply to the masses.

They can reprogram IMEI, although that usually requires specialist equipment and knowledge of IMEIs in use. These phones are then usually exported to third-world countries. According to GSMA, around 80% of the stolen devices in London were reconnected using overseas IP addresses, with Algeria and China the prime locations.

With the device, they and the ID usually found in it; they can SIM Swap – your smartphone is the weakest security link, and do account takeover. They can interrogate the storage and discover valuable documents and photos (some of which have been used for blackmail).

Or they sell it for about 10% of its value for parts. That has been linked to just one building in China. The Feiyang Times building on the city’s Huaqiangbei electronic commercial street is known as the ‘stolen iPhone building’. It sells cheap, second-hand mobile devices from Western countries. This hub is where many devices end up, with readily available buyers and traders for every model and every component of devices displayed across the various market stalls.

What can you do to reduce phone theft?

• Don’t carry a phone in a rear or exposed pocket. The trend of females wearing gym pants with a side phone pocket makes them highly vulnerable. Putting a phone in a back pants pocket – ditto.
• Never put your phone down at a restaurant table or on the pub bar.
• Never walk and look at your phone. Pay attention to the surrounds.
• Buy a lanyard that can be ‘semi-permanently’ affixed to the phone. So few phones have lanyard points.
• Hold onto your phone with two hands when making a call or taking a photo.
• Avoid areas where teenagers are wearing ski or medical masks and riding e-bikes or e-scooters.
• Use earbuds for vocal cues when using Navigation.
• Set a SIM PIN different to the device PIN. Be aware that you need to change the SIM PIN from any default the Telco uses.
• Make sure finance and identity apps have different passwords from the device and each other.
• Use Biometrics, fingerprints or Facial ID to unlock the phone and set the time out as short as is convenient.
• Use the Find My Phone service. See if there is a LOST mode that can disable payment systems and initiate a remote erase.
• Buy a Pixel – it has Theft Protection.
• Tourists should have a backup phone with eSIM capability loaded with all their apps and data, as you can transfer the number in minutes.
• Back everything up to the cloud for easy reinstatement to another phone.

CyberShack’s view: Phone theft is too easy and a quick way to make money

Some friends recently experienced this in Italy. The Carabinieri stated that most phones were stolen by illegal immigrants – ‘street-level’ thieves who needed fast cash. They were told that they were lucky – muggings for wallets, passports and hotel keys were also lucrative but harder to quickly monetise.

Friends in London reported seeing this frequently in the high street and along the Thames walk areas. It has become known as a rite of passage to have your phone stolen in London.

The article is to help you be aware that phone theft is happening here, too, and that you need to be careful.