Stolen iPad

Did any of the emails that you received from "Apple" ask you to click on a link in the email to log in with your iCloud ID and password? If so, it was a scam to get your iCloud ID and password so the thief could log in and remove your device from iCloud and Activation lock.

marthacfromnc wrote:

No - There were no links in the emails - and all the damage was done before I even read them

To start out with, they will get past the 4-digit code by restoring the device, but removing Find My iPhone and is questionable.

marthacfromnc wrote:

I had to answer the security questions to change my password to log onto iCloud.

When did you do this? Did you log into iCloud from your computer to do this, or did you access iCloud somewhere else?

I Can't explain exactly what happened to you, but I can tell you that I tried to log into my iCloud.com account the other day simply to check something and I was prompted to create a new password. So what I am saying is, I don't necessarily think your account was hacked because you were prompted to do this. I have seen a couple of other people talk about this happening recently, and I think it is Apple's insistence on telling us that we need stronger passwords and they are forcing us to create them.

I have experienced this in the past and in neither instance did I create a new password. I'm sure that I will have to do so, sooner or later, but I just decided to not log in the other day and deal with it later.

out of curiosity, is your iCloud password easy to guess like password123 or your first/last name (for example)?

Ok so it's not exactly easy to guess but does your middle name happen to be on the baggage tag? Since it was stolen out of the checked baggage, you should report it to TSA and LGA airport security. I'm sure one of their (crooked) agents is involved. Btw, I never put anything but clothing articles and toiletries in my checked baggage. I never trust baggage handlers anywhere in the world.

Apple absolutely will not get involved in any attempts to recover the device. It's purely a police issue.

Did any of the emails give you a physical address or GPS coordinates of where it was located? You would need to turn that over to the police in the hopes that it would be the home of whomever has the iPad.

I see. I'm still curious how the thieves were able to disable activation lock. If it is in fact true, there is still a security hole in the device. What iOS version were you using on the device?

If the thieves were able to get into your account and disable Find my iPad, technically wouldn't that be no longer considered lost? Now anyone can become the device new owner.

Here's my guess as to how they did this:

They hacked your passcode. Now that they're in, they can open Settings -> iCloud to see the email / id you are using. They go to the iCloud web site, click Forgot my password, put in your email / id and choose "Get an email".

This email delivers to the iPad, they reset the password, disable Find my iPad, and the iPad is now off of your account.

Check your iCloud account email for Deleted password reset emails...

4-digit passcodes are very weak. 6-digit are better, but an actual password is best with TouchID being what you use to actually unlock the device 99% of the time.

Did you receive emails from Apple telling you about the access to your account from a new web browser? That should have arrived before the others.

That is standard from Apple when your iCloud account is signed in to from a "new" place.

And it seems your iPad was placed into Lost Mode twice.

I don't see any reason to conclude they hacked your passcode and have physical access to your iPad. None of this requires access to your iPad. To be clear, these 3 emails came to you 17 days after the iPad went missing correct?

1st email - iPad was found at 8:07 pm at *address in Brooklyn, NY

2nd email - iPad was placed in Lost mode at 8:07

3rd email at 8:39 - Find my iPad has been disabled