False positive? Phone marked lost/stolen with receipt of SMS

system · 2017-05-15T13:34:13.000Z

This morning, while logging in to Kickstarter on my tablet, my phone was marked lost/stolen. Upon investigating further (after marking it as found and stopping the loud alarms), I was able to recreate the issue.

It turns out that the advanced authentication SMS I get from Kickstarter triggers the ‘lost/stolen’ mode on my Android device. The SMS looks innocent, since it just has one sentence containing the one-time code for login to Kickstarter.

I’m on a Galaxy S7 (unlocked, SM-G930U) running Android 6.0.1.

Anyone out there have a similar issue with a remedy? Thanks, in advance.

system · 2017-05-15T13:57:10.000Z

I take that back, I’m actually getting my phone marked lost/stolen with any SMS that gets sent to me. The most recent one happened when I received one from Amazon sending me a one-time password.

TerezaV. · 2017-05-16T19:49:06.000Z

Hi, do you use the standalone Anti-Theft 4.2, or the new one which is a part of Avast Mobile Security 6.1.x?

system · 2017-05-16T20:38:41.000Z

The new one that is part of the Mobile Security Suite.

TerezaV. · 2017-05-18T10:27:24.000Z

Hi, thanks so much for your reply. This was a known issue in the standalone Anti-Theft 4.2 and we were hoping it has been fixed in Avast Mobile Security 6.1.3. The problem is caused by a feature, which guards that noone is trying to guess your Avast PIN and control your device remotely via SMS commands. When 8 SMSs come, which seem to be such an attempt to take control over your device (the time period is not limited), the phone gets locked.

Would you be so kind and PM me what the Kickstarter SMS looks like? That would really help us fix it.

Thanks again for reporting the issue and any further assistance.

system · 2017-05-18T11:45:46.000Z

The text message come from phone # 1-503-678-9475.

The message text reads (where 123456 is a unique one-time code for the advanced authentication):

123456 is your Kickstarter authentication code

TerezaV. · 2017-05-22T16:19:43.000Z

Hi Damian, developers have confirmed that fix for this type of message is missing. They will add it for some of the upcoming releases.

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