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Ok, so my samsung galaxy 5 was stolen. I had gmail, calendar, twitter(tweetdeck), facebook, ... all my personal data in it.

I didn't have any app installed that could wipe this information from a sms (tried to install PlanB through the market, but I don't think it'll work).

I already changed my google password and I'm proceeding to change facebook and twitter as well.

Is this enough? How much of this information (old emails, tweets, ...) are saved in the phone's memory? Can I prevent access to this just by changing my passwords?

I've blocked my SIM card with my provider, so I guess the phone currently have no internet or telephone line access.

Here in Brazil we can also block a stolen cell phone with the IMEI number, but I don't know exactly what this means. Will this brick the phone or just prevent it from being registered in the network?

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  • I suspect PlanB won't work after you change your Google password.
    – BMitch
    Sep 10, 2011 at 1:37

3 Answers 3

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Remote wipe programs like Plan B only work if your phone still has battery and still has a data connection through the internet to download the app, if you'd pre-loaded a program like LookOut then it would work without a data connection but would still need a phone network connection to receive an SMS text message or something like that. If you've blocked your SIM and/or blocked your IMEI then it's too late to use a remote wipe program as you don't have any way to get any kind of message to your phone any more, you need to do the wipe before getting anything blocked by your phone company.

Did you have any kind of unlock code (pattern or number, or something like that)? If so that should stop the thief easily getting to any of the data on the phone itself, and if they enter the wrong code/pattern a number of times it totally locks the phone out, and you need to go online (and log in with your Google account) to unlock it. They can apparently still get to data that's directly saved on your phone if they plug the phone into a PC that has the Android Developer tools on it and use the ADB command, but even then some things like the central Accounts database are encrypted to stop them getting your passwords.

Blocking the phone via IMEI will stop anyone else being able to use the phone on a phone network, it won't do any wiping or bricking at all.

There's also your SD card, the thief can just pop that out of the phone and straight into a computer or another phone, nothing on there is protected, see this previous question for a discussion on what personally identifiable info might be on the SD card: Is there any contact information on the SD card?

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  • The phone storage should be readable as well via ADB.
    – Matthew Read
    Jun 16, 2011 at 20:15
  • @Matthew is it, I thought you had to enter your lock code before it would allow direct access, like Blackberrys and similar do? Not something that occurred to me, as my phone removes the lock totally when I'm at home via the Unlock with Wifi app I assumed that was why I was never prompted for it. Bit of a security hole in that case.
    – GAThrawn
    Jun 16, 2011 at 20:33
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    I've never had to enter the code on my phone, and I can't find anything to suggest that it's different for others, although some do want the option. In the end, there's not a lot you can do to thwart someone with physical access unless you encrypt everything.
    – Matthew Read
    Jun 16, 2011 at 22:33
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    @matthewRead USB debuging has to be enabled on the phone in order to use adb. This is off by default.
    – Flow
    Nov 28, 2011 at 3:31
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    @Flow Only when the phone's booted up. I've accessed my phone via adb from either recovery or download mode while USB debugging was off, since obviously those modes don't check OS settings.
    – Matthew Read
    Nov 28, 2011 at 16:35
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If you have your sasmung account setup, you can track, lock and wipe your phone from the samsung website.

This is the one : Samsung Phone Locator

But remember, this would need you to have setup the Samsung account already.

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If your mobile was stolen you can use Android device manager to erase data on your stolen mobile, ring the device, find exact location of mobile.

It requires mobile to be online for it to work.

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