I'm sorry this happened to you.
Did not know that. Then again, not sure how we can do that ... in iOS.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7647773?answerId=305700...
- what you have, and
- what you know
I think the information you added makes the majority of the discussion in this thread irrelevant. If the thieves phished the password in a separate attack and then used that to perform iCloud account hijacking - then that's a fairly expected outcome that is not unusual in the industry. Having both the password and the phone basically proves full ownership.
The thieves changed the phone number immediately while they only obtained the password around 5 days after stealing the phone. Had Apple support been more... well, supportive, we would have been able to recover the account long before the thieves got the second factor. There was a big window of time in which Apple could have helped, but they chose to send us in circles instead.
As for "proving full ownership", those factors cannot prove full ownership because the thieves are not the legal owners of the account. There are multiple ways in which we can prove ownership (legal documents, access to the iCloud email, photos of us inside the account, etc) but Apple doesn't want to provide real tech support (as this commenter [1] pointed out).
Also, related: had this happened in Europe, the GDPR would force Apple to provide my brother his data (as I've written before regarding Google and a locked account [2]). So it's not like they can't, but rather that they don't want to, and I think it's perfectly fair to criticize them for that.
Saying that, I can see how by limiting their involvement they are reducing the risk surface. To address issues like that (and there is, of course, a huge spectrum of account hijacking situations) they would need to train an army of international support representatives who would have the authority to overwrite iCloud ownership - an incredibly questionable power. They would need to be able to validate various documents (e.g. US military ID or some obscure residence permit in Japan), be able to verify photos (which with recent ML advancements is becoming increasingly difficult), make phone and video calls to verify identify, and so much more. In turn, these representatives would become vulnerable to social engineering attacks themselves. If they overwrite ownership for a very sensitive account - who would ever trust Apple again?
It’s basically one of the major principles of cryptographic products: it’s safer for them (and, to be honest, for everyone) to deny giving access to one account, then jeopardize trust in the entire company.
I hope Apple will be able to help you through some process - maybe it takes longer than it should have. Good luck!
AFAIK my brother didn't hand over his iCloud password. That's what the phishing messages were for. Had he not fallen for that (as the article in Spanish explains) the thieves could have only sold the phone for parts. As for how they changed the recovery number, lstamour [1] has what I consider a good guess.
My brother did have a screen lock, but it was a 4-digit numeric code. My guess is that the smudges on the screen revealed quite easily what the code was as AFAIK the thieves didn't ask for it. He chose that code because he often shares the phone with his wife and having to show his face every time was annoying. He didn't know you can have two registered faces, and I don't have the heart to tell him now.
And finally, many of you correctly pointed out that there are steps that could have mitigated this attack. I wanted to share this story mostly [2] because I think it's an interesting example of what iPhone security is like for the type of user who would never set foot in HN. I could have easily followed the steps delineated in this comment [3] from the other thread, but my brother is not that type of user.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34407683
[2] Okay, the main reason I published this story was to find someone who can help (wink wink). But the other reason was definitely in the top 3.
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33602627