Thief reveals how he looted $300,000 from strangers' bank accounts by hacking ... trends now
A 26-year-old thief has revealed the simple passcode trick he used to break into strangers' iPhones and steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from their bank accounts.
Aaron Johnson, who is currently serving eight years at the Minnesota Correctional Facility, explained in an interview with The Wall Street Journal how he was able to steal over $300,000 between 2021 and 2022.
Johnson would visit local bars, befriend young people, peep over and watch them insert their passcodes, then take their phones.
Having memorized their passcodes, he would then log into the devices, change the passwords and lock the victims of their Apple IDs. He would also enroll his own face into the phone's Face ID and remove the owner's biometric.
That vital hack granted him access to the phone's password keychain - where their log in credentials for banking apps were readily available.
Johnson and his accomplices drained thousands of dollars from the accounts - often before the victim even realized their phone had been swiped.
Aaron Johnson would visit local bars, befriend young people, peep over and watch them insert their passcodes and take their phones. He would later use the code to lock out victims of their Apple IDs, disable the Find My iPhone function and empty their bank accounts
The security flaw is what prompted the recent launch of Apple's 'Stolen Device Protection' - a setting that prevents cyber-criminals from locking iPhone users out of their Apple accounts or accessing any of their passwords stored in Apple's Keychain.
Johnson explained that he would go to bars and target college-aged men with Pro iPhone models instead of women due to them being 'more guarded and alert to suspicious behavior'.
The thief would then either approach his victims by offering drugs or posing as a 'rapper' and asking to connect with them on social media.
The mostly drunk victim would end up in a conversation with him and hand over their phone, thinking he would simply add in his information and hand it back.
But instead, Johnson would ask them for their password, which the unsuspecting victim would tell him.
'I say, "Hey, your phone is locked. What’s the passcode?" They say, "2-3-4-5-6," or something. And then I just remember it,' he told the Wall Street Journal.
Describing how fast he could change passwords, he said: 'faster than you could say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. You gotta beat the mice to the cheese.'
Once he would set up his Face ID, Johnson would swiftly transfer large sums of money out of their bank account using mobile payment services such as Venmo, Zelle, and Coinbase.
The next day, Johnson would hit different stores to buy stuff using Apple Pay, including other Apple products.
Johnson explained that he would go to bars and target college-aged men with Pro iPhone models instead of women due to them being 'more guarded and alert to suspicious behavior'
The thief would then either approach his victims by offering drugs or posing as a 'rapper' and asking to connect with them on social media. The mostly drunk victim would end up in a conversation with him and hand over their phone, thinking he would simply add in his information and
