14 DAY TRIAL // Certainly not the best news that Apple hoped for on iPhone X launch day: a bug in iOS 11 allows anyone to bypass the iCloud activation lock using a wrong passcode entered during the initial set-up screen.
As weird as this might sound, it is possible to quickly remove the activation lock completely on an iOS 11 device, and a video posted by YouTuber EverythingApplePro shows this working on both the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8.
Basically, bypassing the iCloud activation lock requires reaching the unlocking with passcode screen where users only have to type whatever passcode they want for several times in a row to just have the device activated in the background.
Bug confirmed in iOS 11.1
In some cases, it involves waiting for an hour or so for the activation session to expire, which then brings back the passcode prompt, making it possible to again bypass the activation lock easily. Once the iPhone is configured, no iCloud account is configured, proving that the activation was tricked with no need for providing an account.
The bug reportedly works on iOS 11.1, which is the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system that will also power the newly-launched iPhone X, so the faster the company addresses this bug, the better for both the company and its users. It’s not yet known if the same bug exists in the most recent beta versions of iOS, but expect Apple to fix the problem in a future update.
This isn’t the first time this kind of vulnerabilities is discovered on an iPhone, and in most of the cases, Apple did fix them, though the company never seemed to be in a rush to do it. Without a doubt, however, Apple is already aware of the bug, so hopefully the company will fix this one faster, especially since an increase in iPhone activations is expected to be recorded these days as the iPhone X starts shipping.
