Before I begin: No, your credit card information cannot be stolen using AirDrop. AirDrop doesn’t even know your credit card number.
In a joke that’s been spreading around TikTok lately (the source of the rumor is unclear), viral videos are now saying that hackers can use the iPhone’s AirDrop feature to steal your credit card information from your Apple Wallet. The news was first reported The daily pointwho, to his credit, quickly called it nonsense.
What the rumors say
In videos discovered above the competitive social media app In recent weeks, popular users like @vanessaromito13 and @the_journey76 urged listeners to be careful with Apple’s AirDrop feature after a “recent update,” claiming hackers can now steal your credit card information simply by using an iPhone in the bag walk past you. The latter, in particular, says that hackers “can now walk past you and switch from one iPhone to another using this AirDrop setting to get all the cards in your wallet.” In your Apple Wallet.” The former, meanwhile, tries to offer a solution by it encourages followers to turn off the “Search with other iPhones” setting.
Fortunately, neither is true.
Can people steal information via AirDrop?
Whatever caused these concerns, there is nothing in the latest iPhone update (iOS 18.2) that would have contributed to it. Despite the concerns about AirDrop, last week’s update didn’t make any changes to either AirDrop or Apple Wallet, but instead focused the majority of the attention on them Apple Intelligence.
Instead, the rumors appear to be a rehash of previous concerns about the iPhone NameDrop functionalitywhich allows two iPhones to exchange contact information simply by approaching each other. Even law enforcement got in on the scaremongering here, but tech experts were quick to point out that it was a feature requires extremely close physical proximity and consent from both parties. In fact, most concluded that it wasn’t much of a risk.
Saying that people can use AirDrop to steal your credit cards by simply walking past you with their iPhone nearby stirs up a similar fear, but doesn’t even reference an existing feature.
First, there is no “Search with other iPhones” setting that can be disabled. To put it generously, the influencer may be referring to the “Bring Devices Together” setting added with NameDrop, or the ability to set your AirDrop permissions to receive requests from everyone for 10 minutes.
Regardless, neither works in the way described. Bring Devices Together is a NameDrop-only feature, while accepting requests from everyone just means other users can offer to send you files that you still have to accept before they get to your phone. In order for them to retrieve files from your phone, you must send them yourself. Regardless, after 10 minutes your settings will revert to Contacts Only without the Always On option to share with everyone available.
Second, AirDrop cannot interact with Apple Wallet. The feature can only share files that are accessible through the iPhone’s file browser. Apple Wallet does not store any information there. And even if it did, Apple Wallet doesn’t actually have your credit card information – it uses a “device account number” generated by your bank or card provider, which is and is encrypted along with everything else in your wallet very difficult to do anything with unless you have the iPhone it’s tied to. Accordingly Apple“Your card number is never stored on your device or on Apple servers.”
In short, the biggest risk that someone close to you will steal your credit card number through Apple Wallet is if they see the last four digits of your card by physically looking at your screen. And yet they can’t do much with it.
Can People Steal Your Apple Pay Transactions Using Tap to Pay?
So, yes, this latest warning is a fake. AirDrop can’t do anything with your payment information, and a hacker needs a little more care to withdraw money from your Apple Pay than simply walking past you with an iPhone in your pocket. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be vigilant.
There are currently two known ways people can steal from you using Apple Pay, although neither gives them permanent access to your financial data.
The first is to take advantage of stressed buyers by charging them too much. As also reported by The daily pointIf you’ve already approved a transaction by double-tapping your Apple Wallet and authenticated the payment (via FaceID, TouchID, or your PIN), but haven’t yet seen the seller’s screen, they can easily charge you any fee charge your phone to your phone without first confirming the sale with you. In one case, a woman was charged $975 for a $10 box of chocolates because she was already preparing to use Apple Pay before she saw the scammer’s seller screen and saw how much she was paying would actually charge her. Always make sure you see a fee before activating Apple Pay instead of relying on the fee provided by the seller.
The second is a little harder to avoid. While hackers can’t use AirDrop to steal your payment information, they can use their own software to steal transactions wirelessly from nearby payment terminals. This is a little harder to avoid and is usually used at particularly busy venues, such as music festivals. In this case, you only have to pay what you wanted to pay the seller. However, if you are in a crowded area with many sales going on at the same time, be aware of others around you while shopping. If you use Apple Pay, you need to be nearby to steal a transaction via NFC. If they still succeed, you can at least be sure that all information will be sent to the terminal will have been encrypted.
Again, there are legitimate threats to watch out for and it is advisable to exercise caution. But allowing panic-mongering social media posts to send you into a worried frenzy will only make it harder to keep track of the real risks out there and could cause you to miss out the real benefits that are equipped with encryption-focused payment methods such as tap-to-pay.
