Two men dressed as Apple store employees casually walked out of an Apple Store in New York City last week with 19 stolen iPhones, collectively worth over $16 000.
One of the two thieves, wearing a blue shirt resembling those worn by Apple store employees, walked into the store's repair room, took the phones out of a drawer, and then passed them to the other thief, who reportedly hid the devices under his shirt as they left the premises.
Earlier this year, three thieves used the same disguise to steal 67 iPhones from a different New York City Apple store.
The shirts worn by Apple store employees can be bought online for under $15 (less than R225). Due to their simplistic design - electric blue T-shirts with a white Apple logo embroidered onto the front - they are also easy to duplicate.
At the ITWeb Security Summit in Midrand in May, social engineer Jenny Radcliffe illuminated how easy it is for criminals to bypass even the most complex security systems by acquiring the trust of the people in charge of them, often using simple authority ploys - in this case, wearing cheap T-shirts to pretending to be company employees.
Others have noticed the ease with which an Apple store uniform can be duplicated and used to fool people, and put this knowledge to more humorous use. A March 2015 prank video on YouTube shows a group of people disguised as Apple Store employees telling confused customers that they should be looking at Microsoft products instead.
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