Giri got his stolen phone back because of Avast Anti-Theft
A stranger broke into Giri C’s house last September. The thief looked through Giri’s belongings for something of value. He found a MotoE Phone and grabbed it. Mobile phones are an easy target because the thief can just slip in a new SIM card and resell the phone on the black market.
What this thief didn’t know was that Giri had installed Avast Anti-Theft protection. Avast Anti-Theft allows you to set up your desktop account or use a friend’s phone to remotely locate your device, lock it, activate the remote siren, or wipe its data clean.
When the SIM card is changed without the right permissions, Anti-Theft recognizes it and notifies you of the new number and geo-location so you can maintain contact with your phone. You can also activate a loud, customizable siren, which screams at maximum volume if the thief tries to silence it.
Giri reported the robbery to the local Bangalore police, and after a few days he received a call saying that someone had turned the phone into the station.
”When I received the phone from the police,” Giri told us, “the phone was giving the SIREN sound that my mobile is stolen due to the settings I have configured. I understand that the person who had stolen it might have tried replacing the SIM but he was not able to do it as it has locked the phone and the weird sound frightened him.”
The siren continuously and loudly says the following, by default, when activated: “This device has been lost or stolen!”. In the advanced settings of Avast Mobile Security you can customize what message the siren will sound, if you do not want to use the pre-set message. You can do this under “Select Sound File” or “Record Siren Sound”.
“I feel I recovered my stolen mobile only because of AVAST,” said Giri. “I thank your company for such a wonderful and useful product.”
Giri added a tip for other Android phone owners:
“More than using just anti-virus, it’s better to use software with proper tracking available which will be useful to avoid misuse of the phone, as similar features are not available in Android.”
Avast Anti-Theft is available on Google Play, where it can be downloaded for free.
Share your story with Avast
Have you experienced an attack or breach of your home network? Had your phone lost and/or stolen? We’d like to hear from you about your experience and how Avast saved the day — write to us with your story at wannabesocial@avast.com. If we post it on our blog, then we will send you an Avast goodie box. 