José Adorno, 9to5Mac:

Over the past few weeks, 9to5Mac has been covering how criminals in Brazil are stealing people’s phones and using them to drain user’s savings in just a moment. Over the weekend, my iPhone 12 was stolen, but iOS 15 and many other precautions were very helpful and ensured that the situation was not as bad as it could have been.

This SIM replacement trick is troubling. If you’ve not read about this exploit and Apple/Google’s response, take a minute to read this 9to5Mac post.

Back to José’s stolen iPhone:

One of the greatest features available on iOS 15 is the ability to make the iPhone findable even after being turned off or factory reset as long as Activation Lock is enabled. Turns out, this really works in real life, as I still have access to the iPhone’s position even though I factory reset it.

Read the article, some good preventative takes (how to protect your iPhone before being stolen) and response advice (iPhone stolen: what to do next?)

If you do nothing else, create a PIN for your SIM. Easy to do, great layer of protection.