Thieves Can Reset Your Apple Watch Without a Password

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A YouTube video shows how easy it is to factory-reset an Apple Watch -- even one that doesn't belong to you.

Apple Watches can easily be factory reset by thieves without the owners' passcodes, staffers at the Apple-centric iDownloadBlog have discovered.

Once factory reset, the watch is essentially like new and can be paired with any iPhone. Tom's Guide was able to quickly replicate the method.

Apple Watch owners are not required to set a passcode for their devices, unless they intend to use the watch for Apple Pay. If a passcode is set, the user must enter it every time the Apple Watch is removed from the user's wrist, and when it is rebooted.

Apple devices running iOS 7 or iOS 8 are protected by Activation Lock, which makes it nearly impossible to factory-reset an iPhone or iPad without the user's Apple ID password. The feature has been credited with a drop in the rate of iPhone theft in New York, San Francisco and London.

Intricate workarounds to get past an iPhone's lock screen are often discovered. However, they're often difficult to replicate, at least on the first try.

Apple did not immediately reply to a request for comment. We will update this story if the company comments.

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and gaming. Follow him at @snd_wagenseil. Follow Tom's Guide at @tomsguide, on Facebook and on Google+.

Paul Wagenseil
Paul Wagenseil

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, code monkey and video editor. He's been rooting around in the information-security space for more than 15 years at FoxNews.com, SecurityNewsDaily, TechNewsDaily and Tom's Guide, has presented talks at the ShmooCon, DerbyCon and BSides Las Vegas hacker conferences, shown up in random TV news spots and even moderated a panel discussion at the CEDIA home-technology conference. You can follow his rants on Twitter at @snd_wagenseil.

7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • BreezeDM
    It is the same with Android Wear.
    Reply
  • ubercake
    Apple knows better than to give people all of the good stuff at once.

    This is how they sell people on Apple Watch 2.0. They incorporate enhanced security in the next edition.
    Reply
  • Jake Hall
    Good
    Reply
  • 3ogdy
    Hell , don't mention it here! That's a good thing. Anyone buying CrApple should pay 5 times its price, because idiocy costs.
    Reply
  • virtualban
    As long as personal data is secure, I don't mind a hard reset on devices. Even phones. Especially given how cheap the technology is getting (except apple products of course).
    Reply
  • zodiacfml
    right.. as though a watch is easier to lose or steal than a smartphone.
    Reply
  • gorfmaster1
    You can also reset an iPad without a passcode. why is this any different?
    Reply