Barely minutes ago, I wrote about a chief executive and an alleged honey trap. Early this morning, a less glamorous seduction came much closer home, and I write to share it by way of caution to our esteemed readers.This morning, I discovered that I had been mysteriously logged out of my Gmail account.No explanation immediately available. Just that familiar and mildly terrifying demand that I establish, once again, that I was indeed myself.
My elder son lives in Austin, Texas. His email address happens to be my recovery email address. I, therefore, turned to him, as fathers increasingly do when the technological world begins behaving in ways that their decades of administrative experience cannot explain.
Our conversation quickly moved beyond Gmail.
I had always assumed that putting my iPhone into flight mode was a sensible security precaution. No cellular calls, no mobile data, no connection to a mobile tower. Surely that meant some degree of protection from outside interference?
My son challenged that comforting assumption.
What happens, he asked in substance, if somebody is trying to compromise your digital identity precisely when you have made yourself unreachable?
Imagine a flight lasting three or four hours. You are somewhere above the clouds, insulated from the world. Your phone is in flight mode. You cannot receive ordinary cellular calls or SMS messages warning that something is amiss.
Meanwhile, the world you have disconnected from has not stopped operating.
You have disconnected your telephone from the cellular network. You have not disconnected your digital identity from those who might be trying to steal it.
An important distinction. And a rather frightening one.
The Night My Switched-Off iPhone Woke Up
There is a personal history to my anxiety.
On 11 September 2026, I published an article in The KBS Chronicle describing an unsettling experience.
I had switched off my iPhone before retiring for the night and connected it to the charger. When I awoke, the telephone was switched on, displaying full cellular signal bars.
Nobody had touched it.
My investigation eventually pointed towards a perfectly plausible explanation: the charger, perhaps assisted by a momentary interruption and restoration of the electricity supply, had caused the phone to restart.
The discovery led me into a wider examination of iPhone shutdown behaviour, theft protection, Apple’s Find My network and sophisticated spyware.
Here is that earlier investigation:
·
Sep 11
I Switched Off My iPhone Before I Slept. Who Switched It On?
KBS Sidhu | Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab (retired) | Founder-Editor, The KBS Chronicle
Read full story
At the end of that article, I had resolved to activate flight mode before switching off my iPhone for the night.
It seemed a sensible precaution. If the charger unexpectedly woke it, I hoped it would remain disconnected from the cellular network.
Two months later, my son has made me question the very precaution I adopted.
And that is why this morning’s conversation deserves a sequel.
The Burglar Who Knows You Are Away
There is something psychologically reassuring about the little aircraft symbol on our screens.
We imagine that we have raised the digital drawbridge. The gates are shut. The guards have retired. The kingdom is secure.
But consider another possibility.
A criminal does not necessarily need to hack your telephone. He may seek to compromise your email credentials, manipulate an account-recovery mechanism or fraudulently transfer your mobile number to another SIM.
That last technique is called SIM swapping.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has documented how criminals can persuade or deceive telecom operators into transferring a victim’s number to a SIM under their control.
Once successful, calls and SMS messages intended for the victim may reach the criminal instead, potentially including one-time passwords used for account authentication.
And where are you during all this?
Perhaps sleeping peacefully.
Perhaps enjoying a long flight.
Perhaps congratulating yourself on having secured your telephone by switching it off.
The irony is almost exquisite.
Your handset may be perfectly safe while your telephone number is being hijacked somewhere else.
Let us distinguish the established danger from the exaggerated version.
Flight mode does not itself make SIM swapping easier. Nor can somebody ordinarily clone your SIM or obtain your OTPs merely by knowing your IMEI number or the last mobile tower to which your handset was connected.
The IMEI identifies the device. It is not a universal password. A record of your location does not confer control over your mobile number.
An attacker still needs another means of compromising the account, mobile subscription or communications infrastructure.
And in India, there are safeguards. A Department of Telecommunications direction dated 27 September 2022 requires incoming and outgoing SMS facilities to be barred for 24 hours after activation of a replacement SIM.
That makes a straightforward SMS-based takeover more difficult. It does not eliminate every form of account fraud.
The vulnerability is not that flight mode somehow empowers the hacker.
It is that your absence may give an attacker valuable time before you notice what has happened.
Is Flight Mode Really Flight Mode?
Then comes another surprise.
According to Apple’s own documentation, activating flight mode disables cellular connectivity and normally Wi-Fi, but Bluetooth can remain active. Wi-Fi can also be enabled again while flight mode remains displayed.
Thus, the aircraft symbol does not necessarily mean that all the phone’s wireless connections have been disabled.
Nor does flight mode deactivate the microphone or stop applications from performing functions that do not require connectivity.
A recording application may store audio locally. Malicious software, if it has obtained the necessary access, may collect information for later transmission.
But we must be precise. This is not evidence that Apple, Google or every application on our phones is secretly recording all our conversations. Such an allegation requires evidence.
The point is narrower, and sufficiently disquieting.
Flight mode is a communications setting, not a comprehensive privacy guarantee.
A properly powered-down device can reduce certain risks more effectively than one that remains running. Conversely, an online account remains vulnerable to some attacks even when the associated handset is completely switched off.
These are different threats requiring different defences.
The Advice That Surprised Me Most
After our discussion, I asked my son a practical question.
Suppose I simply wish to sleep peacefully at night, without telephone calls, WhatsApp messages and notifications disturbing me. Should I switch the phone off altogether?
His answer surprised me.
Keep it connected. Silence the notifications. Better still, use Do Not Disturb.
The distinction was subtle but persuasive.
By silencing the phone rather than disconnecting it, I can continue to receive incoming messages, account-security notifications and other communications, even if I choose not to have them interrupt my sleep.
Apple’s Do Not Disturb facility allows selected contacts and applications to be exempted from the general silence. Critical notifications and emergency calls can therefore be accommodated, subject to the settings chosen.
Of course, a connected telephone is not automatically safer against every kind of attack. A genuinely powered-down handset has fewer active functions and can offer protection against certain device-specific threats.
My son’s argument was about a different risk: the delayed discovery of an attack on accounts or communications services operating independently of the handset.
I need not make myself unreachable merely to enjoy an undisturbed night’s sleep.
The objective is to silence interruptions, not necessarily to sever connectivity.
In the event of a security warning, the message can arrive and remain available for examination. Depending upon my notification settings, a particularly important alert may even be allowed through.
I cannot guarantee that I shall detect an attack while asleep.
But I can avoid deliberately removing one possible channel through which I might discover it.
The OTP: A Six-Digit Gateway to Your Life
For Indian readers, this is a matter of considerable practical significance.
Our banking systems, payment applications, government portals, tax records and countless other digital services are linked to our mobile numbers.
We have come to treat possession of a particular number almost as proof of identity.
Yet the relationship between that number and the person legitimately entitled to use it depends upon telecom operators and their authentication arrangements.
The US Federal Trade Commission explicitly warns that SMS-based authentication can be defeated through SIM swapping.
This is precisely why stronger authentication methods matter.
Passkeys, authenticator applications and physical security keys can reduce reliance on a potentially compromised mobile number. Google even maintains an Advanced Protection Program for people at greater risk of targeted attacks, including journalists and public figures.
A PIN or other account-level safeguard with the telecom operator may also reduce the risk of unauthorised number transfers.
And users should periodically examine their Google security activity, logged-in devices, recovery arrangements and account settings.
An unexpected logout from Gmail, such as the one I experienced this morning, does not establish that an intruder has entered. Browser cookies, session expiry and other routine technical causes are possible.
Nevertheless, Google itself recommends investigating unfamiliar account activity.
An unexpected logout is a reason to check. Not a reason to panic, and certainly not proof that an intelligence agency has suddenly developed an interest in one’s correspondence.
Who Is Watching the Watchman?
The broader issue is not an aircraft symbol, a charger or a mysterious Gmail logout.
It is the extraordinary dependence we have placed upon a single electronic device and the digital identity attached to it.
Our telephone is now simultaneously a bank branch, identity card, correspondence office, camera, filing cabinet, personal diary and emergency communications system.
Its number helps establish our identity to organisations that have never met us. Its email account can unlock dozens of other accounts. Its recovery mechanisms may depend upon a family member living halfway across the world.
And yet many of us still imagine that cybersecurity consists of choosing between three symbols on a screen: a little aircraft, a crossed-out bell and a power button.
I do not know why Gmail unexpectedly logged me out this morning.
I have no evidence that anyone compromised my iPhone, intercepted an OTP or interfered with my communications.
My previous iPhone mystery had a probable explanation in ordinary charging behaviour.
What today’s conversation has done is reveal a different and more consequential concern.
We tend to confuse control over the physical device with control over the network of passwords, telephone numbers, databases, service providers and authentication mechanisms upon which our digital lives depend.
The criminal does not necessarily need to enter your bedroom.
He may not need to switch on your microphone.
He may not even need your telephone.
He may simply need to convince somebody else’s computer that he is you.
And when you wake up, or your aircraft finally lands, the question may no longer be why your phone was not receiving messages.
It may be whether someone else was receiving them in your place.
So tonight, by all means, silence the bell. Enjoy your sleep.
But do not mistake the silence of your telephone for the security of your digital life.