Can thief unlock stolen phone that was locked by Android Device Manager?

Question

My phone was recently stolen.

Luckily, I enabled Android Device Manager awhile ago. So, I locked the phone via the web app of Android Device Manager.

Can the thief unlock my phone? I'm not asking how. There is a scenario in my mind that I'm afraid that could be possible to unlock the phone and restore factory settings, wiping all my data. Is that possible?

Again, I just want a Yes or No answer, not how he can do it.

possible duplicate of Could a thief reset a stolen phone from its default config + screen lock? — geffchang, Mar 27 '14 at 02:39
not duplicate cause it's not locked via pattern it's locked via the https://www.google.com/android/devicemanager — a14m, Mar 27 '14 at 02:43
If you were able to lock it remotely via the device manager website, can you track it on there also? Honestly though, wiping your data is probably the best thing (for you) a thief could do. — Chahk, Mar 27 '14 at 13:40
yeah you can track it there also... but when it's connected to the internet only... via 3g or wifi — a14m, Mar 27 '14 at 13:54
If you haven't already, probably best to reset passwords, logout sessions (e.g. Google lets you do this), remove the device from any APIs/services that it used, etc. to help mitigate damages done by thief gaining access. As others mentioned, wiping device remotely via Device Manager sounds like best thing as well (assuming you can) — Dolan Antenucci, Apr 02 '14 at 20:15

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 27 '14 at 03:14

The answer is almost certainly yes.

Someone could probably get past it in one way or another. (They could probably just use odin on a samsung device for example. Though I have never done something like that myself.) If you have sensitive data on there then a remote wipe might be the best thing.

Did you report it stolen with your carrier? They could report the ESN / IMEI as stolen so at the very least the thief probably wouldn't be able to sell it.

Of course I do not know your exact situation. If you know for sure it was stolen and not lost could the police recover it from the thief?

Either way best of luck to you.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 27 '14 at 03:41

It would depend on the phone, but as firesoul453 said in his answer, almost certainly yes.

Locking the phone is intended to protect the data - In other words: the thief cannot get your data off of the phone. Due to the nature of the android system though, it's usually very easy to wipe out the data on the phone. Usually this can be done via recovery, or even by bootloader unlocking the phone, neither of which require the PIN to be entered.

Additionally, if you are on a version of Android prior to 4.1 and have USB Debugging enabled, they can completely disable the lockscreen PIN without having to wipe the data.

If it's still connected to Android Device Manager, though, they haven't wiped the data yet.

Can thief unlock stolen phone that was locked by Android Device Manager?

2 Answers2