iOS 7 Bug Lets You Disable 'Find My iPhone' Without a Password [Video]

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Posted February 6, 2014 at 9:35pm by Shalom Levytam

Bradley Williams has discovered a bug in iOS 7 that let you disable Find My iPhone without needing a password.

Williams says he attempted to contact Apple about the bug; however, he did not receive a response.

Here's how it works:
1. Navigate to iCloud in Settings.
2. Select your account.
3. Change the password to an incorrect one then tap Done.
4. Tap OK when warned that it is the wrong password. Then tap Cancel.
5. Reselect your account.
6. Empty the description field and then press Done.

After following those steps, Find My iPhone is disabled.

MacRumors has been able to successfully replicate this bug on an iPhone and an iPad running iOS 7.0.4, but could not get it to work on a device running iOS 7.1, so the flaw will likely be fixed with the upcoming update.

Check out the video below for a demonstration.

[Original video removed]

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SAQIB - February 19, 2014 at 5:29am

Thank you so much.

ashish - February 12, 2014 at 10:38am

whats about unverified account. In this case account is not highlighting and find my iphone too, any help in that case.

vishal gupta 1988 - February 11, 2014 at 4:13am

oh no, i just killed my iphone 5s with my own hands, i did follow all these steps and my iphone now stuck on activation screen, after restore it got stuck on activation screen. now what to do, before these steps i was using my handset, now it's stuck on activation screen.

gsmpearl - February 11, 2014 at 10:34am

After you put your id and apply lost mode or not if not then no way :(

Pradeep - February 11, 2014 at 5:47pm

It's really working

Mark - February 8, 2014 at 3:30pm

Guys, do not restore. If you restore, it will still ask for the iCloud activation. Please wait until a solution is found.

gamerscul9870 - February 8, 2014 at 3:22am

Guys, how does this help thieves if they need to bypass (even with the 5s) the lock screen in order to do that?

Kr00 - February 8, 2014 at 3:18am

Pretty unless when the phone has a passcode lock. Even more reason to have one.

Marius - February 12, 2014 at 11:13pm

Right!

Vincent - February 7, 2014 at 3:53pm

that is not a bug, cause the Iphone is not linked to any Number of Phone or Icloud ID, it's Linked with the MAC adress who are him linked to the N°, Imei, id etc....is not the same ! & it's a feature !

JW - February 7, 2014 at 9:15pm

It is not a feature. You cannot remove the Apple ID that is associated with the account if Find My iPhone is turned on on any phone with iOS 7.0+. You can't turn off the feature either, it asks for a passcode every time.

JEOE - February 7, 2014 at 2:10pm

This only works when there is no password on the phone so it's worthless...

gamerscul9870 - February 7, 2014 at 12:46pm

The others here posting exactly how they can't access it proves you wrong, even China iPhone 5 isn't anywhere close to work like the one in U.S.!

Mortifer - February 7, 2014 at 12:33pm

Just do what I've done since iOS 5 turn restrictions on and disallow changes to accounts

Cesar - February 7, 2014 at 8:59am

This worked for my iphone , but when i restored it it asked me again for the icloud login information. So the iphone is secure

Hb - February 7, 2014 at 2:26am

Try it. Just did it with iPhone 5 running ios 7.

Nwobi - February 6, 2014 at 10:54pm

We forget that before anyone get access to icloud in your iPhone BUT type in the iPhone PASSCODE or use the owner's finger print to unlock the phone. So the PASSCODE security still covers that and you can't restore the iPhone with unknown Apple ID.

xplode - February 6, 2014 at 10:51pm

If ap hone has a passcode thief need to bypass it in order to do this trick, which is not possible for A5 and newer devices. Restore does not help either, because of activation lock. This can be only applyed on non passcode locked device.

gamerscul9870 - February 6, 2014 at 10:28pm

Thanks for letting thieves know how less you can easily lose iDevices now.

Hb - February 6, 2014 at 9:49pm

Just put phone in dfu mode and restore to new one. That's what all the crooks do

alamix - February 6, 2014 at 9:57pm

no, you cant do it with ios7 u need to know the apple id pass

ratGT - February 7, 2014 at 9:01am

If an iCloud account is associated with the iPhone (which 99% of the devices on iOS 7 are associated during the initial setup wizard) then you'll eventually reach a dead-end after you erase an iPhone (either through Recovery mode or DFU mode), as the last step requires you to enter the owner's the iCloud password.

Chris - February 6, 2014 at 9:44pm

But does it let you restore? Normally you receive an email stating that Find My iPhone was disabled on device.

Tuma - February 6, 2014 at 9:43pm

I tried it on Monday. It's a big problem for buyers. Because I was able to remove the old Apple ID and log in with another Apple ID. But the issue is that when I restored the iPhone 5, iTunes only accepted the previous Apple ID I removed when activating iCloud. Which means if a thief should steal the phone he will just sign out of the iCloud and tell you it's not locked with iCloud. But the trouble comes when you restore. It will ask for an Apple ID. The original one.

mrscorpion - February 7, 2014 at 3:09am

Just use a service to check that iphone's FMI is ON or OFF before buying.