Following the arrest by police in Sao Paulo of one of the gangs specializing in smartphone thefts, the criminals have explained in detail how they infiltrated Apple’s iPhone security.

As reported by the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, the criminals use some advanced tactics to unlock stolen iPhones, but Police Chief Fabiano Barbeiro explained that the criminals used a single tool, namely the iPhone SIM card, to access all the data on one device.

To access the data, the thieves pull out the SIM card of a stolen iPhone and plugged it into another iPhone.

They then used social networks such as Facebook and Instagram to find the email address of the device owner.

While the email address is in many cases the same as the one used for the Apple ID, the thieves only need to reset the Apple ID password using the victim’s phone number.

For more information, read the original story in 9to5Mac.