ESET Online Help

Search English
Select the topic

Anti-Theft

ESET Anti-Theft feature protects your mobile device from unauthorized access, allows you to monitor foreign activity, and tracks the device's location. You can also display a message to the finder in the event the device is lost.

If the device is missing, you can manage it on the ESET Anti-Theft portal, or you can perform specific actions using SMS commands from a trusted contact's device. To perform actions via SMS, you must set up the trusted friends feature and add their phone numbers to the trusted contacts list. Visit our Set up Anti-Theft protection in ESET Mobile Security for Android knowledgebse article to set up Anti-Theft protection in ESET Mobile Security. (Knowledgebase articles are not available in all languages.)

ESET Anti-Theft requires a device location and camera access permissions to operate. To display a warning and lock your device, ESET Mobile Security requires screen overlay permission.

This feature allows you to adjust the warnings and activities triggered by Suspicious mode. ESET Mobile Security regularly saves the device location, camera photos, and wifi IP addresses. You can define the following settings:

Auto-lock device

You can set up ESET Mobile Security to automatically lock your device when one of the following actions is performed:

When a SIM card is removed - If the trusted SIM card is removed from the device, the device will lock. To remove and inspect trusted SIM cards, tap Manage trusted SIM cards, select the SIM card you want to remove, and then tap the bin icon action_button_delete. To add a trusted SIM card, insert the SIM card. If Auto-lock is enabled, you will have to unlock the device. ESET Mobile Security will ask you to confirm the newly added SIM card as trusted. To enable this functionality, we will create a unique identifier ESET#### on your SIM card and in your contacts. Do not delete the unique identifier. If the identifier contact is deleted, the device will lock.

warning

Auto-lock on the SIM card removal support

Auto-lock on the SIM card removal feature is not available on ;CDMA, WCDMA, and wifi-only devices.

After [X] unlock attempts - When enabled, your device locks after a set number of unsuccessful unlock attempts. You can set the number of unsuccessful unlock attempts before locking the device in the Anti-Theft settings. If your unsuccessful attempt was caused by mistake, you can correct it in 30 seconds, and it will not be counted as an unsuccessful attempt. You can change the time for a correction in the Anti-Theft settings in the Time for correction option. You can also disable the time for correction, and the device will lock immediately after the set number of unsuccessful attempts.

When the device is locked, you can display information to contact the owner of the device. You can also enable the device to take pictures with both cameras to get photos of the person that tries to unlock your device.

After the device is locked

After the device is locked, the following actions can be performed:

Show contact details - Displays the Contact owner option when an incorrect screen lock code is entered.

Take a photo - Saves the rear and front camera photos to your device Gallery and the Anti-Theft portal in the event of a failed unlock attempt or a SIM card removal.

 

SMS Commands

When enabled, you can send SMS commands to perform an action such as lock the device, locate the device or wipe the device completely. To send SMS commands, you must save the phone number of the device you want to use to send SMS commands as a trusted contact.

Manage trusted contacts

To add a trusted contact, tap Manage trusted contacts and tap the +icon_plus icon in the bottom right. You can select which commands the specific trusted contact can send. The trusted contact can also receive a notification when your trusted SIM card is removed.

 

important

Text messaging features

The Trusted SIM cards and SMS Text Commands Anti-Theft features are not available on CDMA devices and devices that do not support text messaging.