Table of Contents
- Can You Really Find Your Lost Phone? Why Thieves’ Sneaky Tactics Beat Device Tracking
- Airplane Mode: Quick Way to Hide Your Phone
- Removing or Swapping the SIM Card
- Factory Reset and Flashing a New OS
- IMEI Number Swapping
- Hardware Changes: Replacing Chips or Motherboard Parts
- Security Steps That Help You
- Simple Advice
Can You Really Find Your Lost Phone? Why Thieves’ Sneaky Tactics Beat Device Tracking
Losing a phone can feel sad and expensive. When someone steals a phone, they can use some simple, and some complicated, tricks to hide your device. Here’s how they do it, explained clearly, with tips to help you.
Airplane Mode: Quick Way to Hide Your Phone
Most thieves want to disappear fast. Turning on airplane mode will stop your phone from connecting to the internet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Since both iPhones and Androids let you toggle airplane mode right from the lock screen, a thief can do it in seconds.
With airplane mode on, tracking apps like Find My or Find My Device can’t update your phone’s location. Only some newer phones can send their last known spot after being turned off or disconnected.
What can you do?
On iPhones: Go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Allow Access When Locked. Turn off “Control Center“.
On Android: Find similar lock screen settings and limit what features you can access when the phone is locked.
Removing or Swapping the SIM Card
The SIM card helps your phone get online when there’s no Wi-Fi. If someone pops out your SIM, your phone can’t connect to the carrier network, which kills location updates for tracking apps. Without a SIM, law enforcement can’t use cell towers to help find your device either.
One fix:
Use an eSIM when possible. It’s much harder for someone to remove quickly, giving you a better shot at tracking your phone.
Factory Reset and Flashing a New OS
A thief can reset your phone to factory settings, wiping your data and all tracking tools. Even worse, some experts can install a new OS (“flash a new ROM”) and wipe out protections put there by the phone maker.
Androids are usually more vulnerable to this, but even iPhones have their limits if someone uses hardware tools.
Like a reset, flashing a new OS erases your apps and accounts, making tracking nearly impossible.
Some brands have Factory Reset Protection (FRP), which forces a login before a reset completes, but hackers have found ways around these too, especially by flashing custom firmware.
IMEI Number Swapping
Every phone has a special code called an IMEI, used to identify it on mobile networks. If a thief changes the IMEI, the phone can pretend to be a different device.
Changing the IMEI is illegal in many countries but possible with the right tools.
This trick is more common with Android phones, since iPhones have better hardware protections.
Some changes are only temporary and don’t always fool advanced tracking or the police.
Hardware Changes: Replacing Chips or Motherboard Parts
Skilled thieves or shady repair shops can swap out parts of the phone’s motherboard, like microchips, to disable security and tracking.
By replacing certain chips, thieves can sometimes get around the block that keeps a phone tied to your account.
These repairs are more common in countries with big second-hand phone markets, but they require special skills and tools.
Security Steps That Help You
- Turn on strong lock screen security: Use a PIN, password, or biometrics.
- Disable Control Center or Quick Toggles on your lock screen.
- Switch to eSIMs if your phone supports them.
- Enable new anti-theft features like Theft Detection Lock and Stolen Device Protection.
- Register your device with tracking apps, and back up your data so you don’t lose everything if the phone can’t be recovered.
- Save your IMEI number somewhere safe. You’ll need it if you need to report your phone as stolen.
Simple Advice
Stay aware in public. Put your phone in hard-to-reach places. Try these settings to make it harder for thieves to beat your security. Small steps help a lot.
The bad news: thieves keep learning new tricks, making phones hard to track once stolen. The good news: using strong lock codes, eSIMs, and security updates makes your device safer to keep. If you do these things, you make life harder for thieves and easier for you to stay protected.