The US authorities have warned of the use that criminals are making of AirTags to monitor the cars in which they hide this tracking device and eventually steal them, and that they have been detected after traveling to Canada.
The Burlington Police (Vermont, United States), which borders Canada to the north, has detected a spike in complaints from people who traveled with their car to the neighboring country and upon their return detected that an unknown AirTags was following them, according to media reports locals like WCAX and NBC5.
An alert from their iPhone warned these people of the existence of the intruding device, which they were later able to corroborate with the Apple Search application. With it, they were also able to activate a sound on the AirTag to help locate its location.
AirTags is the name given to Apple’s object location device, designed to help users find everyday items, such as keys or wallet, with the help of a mobile application in case of loss.
They have a small size, little bigger than a coin, and an affordable price, since they can be found in the Apple store for 39 euros per unit (in the Spanish market).
Vermont Intelligence Center cyber analyst Ryan McLiverty told WCAX that criminals have been using these tracking devices for some time, but it has recently increased.
As they have identified, they place them in accessible places that allow them to be kept hidden, such as the windshield wipers, inside a vehicle if it was open or in the front grille. In this way, they can track the cars to later steal and sell them.
FIGHT AGAINST UNWANTED TRACKING
The appearance of Bluetooth location devices such as AirTags or Samsung SmartTags, although promoted for beneficial use for the user, malicious uses have also been detected, with which the location or activity of a person is tracked, generally without their knowledge or consent.
Google and Apple have committed to developing a set of good practices and protocols that the manufacturers of these devices can implement so that both Android and iOS offer alerts in case unauthorized monitoring is detected with them.