Your shiny new Apple Watch? It’s a lot more vulnerable to being stolen than you might know.
Jeff Benjamin over at the iDownload Blog makes a great point: Apple Watch security is a step backward for Apple when it comes to discouraging thieves.
On the iPhone and iPad, Apple uses Activation Lock to make sure thieves don’t steal the device, then wipe it so it can’t find home. First introduced in iOS 7, Activation Lock prevents stolen devices from being reset without first disabling Find My iPhone. That means that any stolen iPhone or iPad can essentially be tracked. It’s responsible for a huge drop in iCrime.
But the Apple Watch doesn’t have a security measure like that. If you steal an Apple Watch, you can easily reset it to default settings and pair it with a different iPhone.
Benjamin’s solution?
True, the Apple Watch doesn’t have the ability to establish its own dedicated Wi-Fi or cellular connection, so a proper Find My iPhone-like solution isn’t in the cards. At the very least, it would seem that Apple could make it so that the device checks against the Apple ID of the last paired device, and requires the proper credentials before un-pairing with that device.
He’s right — this is a big hole in Apple Watch security, and a seemingly trivial one for Apple to fix through the above measures. Maybe it’s something we can hope for in the first major Apple Watch OS update?
Source: iDownload Blog
