Although it sounds weird even when your iPhone is within your own hands, still it can reveal many secrets to the people around you. Because iPhone is all over the place, it has already garnered quite a reputation for itself and continues to be a rage across the globe. So if you’re worried about keeping your iPhone secure, you’ve come to the right spot.
So how many secrets can your iPhone receive? Even if you’re holding it yourself or putting it aside for charging, it can reveal much about your personal life to the people. From personal communication to photos, financial info to credentials, having an iPhone might easily slip concrete details. So how to protect your device to the fullest? Well, if you sift through this article till the end, it will be easy for you to take the security of your iPhone to the next level.
Bear in mind, this text might put you off from some of the most sought after features of the iPhone, still, you will learn how to take care of your private data. On the other hand, you don’t necessarily have to focus on each of the tips mentioned below.
Ready? Ready. Let’s do this:
1. Use a strong passcode
First step: set up a strong passcode. Don’t be that person who’s relying on 000000 or 123456 to protect their information. You are better than that. Much better. Protect your iPhone with a passcode — preferably a custom numeric or alphanumeric code. With either Touch ID or Face ID, you won’t need to enter your passcode unless your finger is wet or you are bundled up to a degree that your face is obscured.
You can set up a passcode by going to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode or Settings > Face ID & Passcode and enroll your fingerprint or face. Make sure iPhone Unlock is toggled on after you set up your passcode.
If you have a phone that supports Face ID, make sure the Require Attention for Face ID option is enabled so that your phone can’t be unlocked when your eyes are closed. If you choose a PIN, make the PIN a more complex alphanumeric code so that it’s harder to guess. To do so, tap Change Passcode, enter your passcode, and then tap Passcode Options.
2. Change what’s accessible on your lock screen
If someone else ever gets their sweaty paws on your iPhone, you don’t want ’em to be able to access any of your personal and/or company information — right?
Well, take note: iPhone typically shows notifications on your lock screen by default — which means the contents of emails or other messages you receive might be visible to anyone who looks at your device, even if they can’t unlock it.
Even the strongest of all the passwords will fail to protect your sensitive information if you haven’t turned off the screen notifications. Emails, messages and personal chats will appear on the lock screen if the notifications haven’t been turned off. Sometimes, confirmation data such as financial data, private appointments and OTPs appear on the home screen. Therefore, the lesser the information on the lock screen, the easier it is for the data to be safe. Especially if you live with a bunch of people around, you must turn off the notifications as soon as you can.
If you tend to get sensitive messages or just want to step up your security and privacy game, you can restrict how much notification info is shown on your lock screen by going to Settings > Notifications > Show Previews and pick either When Unlocked or Never. Always will, as the name implies, always show the content of your notifications even when your phone is locked.
3. Limit activities on your locked iPhone
Here’s arguably the most important part of completely securing your iPhone. Go to Settings > Face ID/Touch ID & Passcode > enter your passcode and then scroll down to the section labeled Allow Access When Locked.
There you’ll find a list of different device features, ranging from things like Siri and Today View to Control Center and Wallet. Every feature with the switch in the on position can be accessed directly from the lock screen, even when your device is locked.
For instance, I was able to pick up my wife’s phone, hold in the side button to trigger Siri and tell it to send a message or make a call. I could also swipe to the right across the lock screen to view her Today View page, where she has widgets that included her day’s agenda and other personal information — all while the phone was locked.
Go through this list and turn off any features you don’t want anyone to have access to. I suggest turning off all of them if you really want to keep your phone and its information locked down. Leaving something like Home Control turned on may seem innocent, but depending on how many and the types of HomeKit devices you have, someone could control your smart home. Thankfully, Apple requires authentication before you can unlock a door or open a garage door.
4. Enable data protection
This should be something you only do if you regularly back up your iPhone and can get your information back without any issues.
Go to Settings > Face ID/Touch ID & Passcode > enter your passcode and then scroll the very bottom of the page. Slide the switch next to Erase Data to the on position.
With Erase Data turned on, your device will automatically factory reset itself after someone incorrectly enters a passcode 10 times.
The process isn’t something that takes place in just a few minutes. After a few incorrect attempts, your phone will set a time limit before someone can retry to enter your passcode again. After another failed attempt, the time between attempts will be extended. For someone to reach the 10 failed attempt mark would take 1 hour and 36 minutes before the erase feature would be triggered.
5. Enable FindMy
Whether you’ve simply misplaced your iPhone around the house or office or you’ve actually lost it out in the wild, always remember that iOS has its own built-in mechanism for finding, ringing, locking, and even erasing a device from afar.
The iPhone Find My Device feature should be enabled by default. You can make sure by heading to Settings > your name > FindMy.
6. Turn on two-factor authentication
One lock is fine but two locks are best. This is why we recommend you turn on the two-factor authentication process. So regardless of whether you want to do it for Apple ID or iCloud, this process will ensure that your device is fully protected. The benefit of acknowledging this option is, you trust your data with more devices. Especially if you’ve been using your iPhone for business reasons, having data security will become the need of the hour. With two-factor authentication, only you can access your account on a trusted device or the web. When you want to sign in to a new device for the first time, you’ll need to provide two pieces of information—your password and the six-digit verification code that’s automatically displayed on your trusted devices or sent to your phone number. By entering the code, you’re verifying that you trust the new device. For example, if you have an iPhone and are signing into your account for the first time on a newly purchased Mac, you’ll be prompted to enter your password and the verification code that’s automatically displayed on your iPhone.
Because your password alone is no longer enough to access your account, two-factor authentication dramatically improves the security of your Apple ID and all the personal information you store with Apple.
- Go to Settings > [your name] > Password & Security.
- Tap Turn On Two-Factor Authentication and follow the onscreen instructions.
7. Get Rid of Unwanted Wi-Fi Connections
IPhone are known for quickly mating with available Wi-Fi connections around them. Although this is chanted as a very good feature, it can sabotage the privacy of the available data. On the other hand, you can also embrace it as a helpful tool, when you don’t have a data connection available on your phone. There’s still a strong chance that a cybercriminal might hack into your system and make things worse. Therefore, never trust a new Wi-Fi connection because it can extract much more than you can expect. Especially when a public Wi-Fi is concerned, many people lose valuable information every year in the pursuit of scrolling through their Instagram and Facebook feeds. This is enough reason for you to keep your Wi-Fi switched off when you don’t need it Turn Off The Automatic iCloud Sync
If you’ve been chasing iPhone news lately, you must have heard about pictures getting leaked from the iCloud servers, which compelled the iPhone fans to go berserk over this issue. Most people thought that deleting their data would work as damage control. However, if the sync to iCloud has been turned on, it will be hard for data to be secure.in reality, it happens to every kind of data whether it’s the contact information, documents, notes, pictures or any other stuff, turning on Sync will put it in the loophole. So if you have a couple of Apple devices at home, don’t forget to turn off Sync of data. This will quickly eradicate the chances of data being compromised whilst still being on the iCloud servers.
8. Disable Siri Right Now
Siri comes as a good handy feature but sometimes the nice assistant can easily give out your information to the strangers around. Although this is not a big turn off for everyone, still your phone will be much more secure if it has been turned off. The problem is, Siri will communicate with everyone because it is a user-friendly feature. Therefore, you cannot trust your phone for personal information. So now is the best time to turn it off and put it to rest for some time. If you turn it off, for now, it will have a profound impact on the security of your device. Now that IPhone’s popularity has immensely got magnified with the latest addition by model 13, fans are going berserk over it. However, security is still a major concern and we want you to keep your data to yourself.
9. Install VPN
A virtual private network (VPN) app running on your iPhone encrypts your connection to the web, making it much harder for other people to snoop on your browsing—whether that’s the government, your internet service provider, or the guy sat behind you at the coffee shop. We’d recommend for paying for a quality, trustworthy VPN.
To set these requirements: Go to “Settings” –> “General” –> “VPN & Device Management.”
Please note: All of the information that you have to enter will be given to you by your VPN provider.
10: Have you been naughty and been reusing passwords?
If you use the iCloud Keychain to store web passwords, you can now use this to check for password reuse (which is bad, so don’t do it!).
Go to Settings > Passwords and authenticate with either Face ID/Touch ID or your passcode.
You will see a grey triangle with an exclamation mark next to any entry that is reused. To change the password, tap Change Password on Website.
11: Reduce lock screen timeout to a minimum
The shorter you set the lock screen timeout setting (options are ranging from 30 seconds to never), the faster your iPhone display will require authentication to access it.
My advice — never set it to never. Never!
You can change the auto-lock time by going to Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock.
12. Install a Good Antivirus
Now that you have sifted through the important tips for keeping the iPhone secure, you must have chosen a few for yourself. Now that almost every person is drooling over iPhone, people are looking for different ways to take its security to the next level. However, if you do still not rest assured with the tips mentioned above, you can download top-notch anti-virus software.
No wonder, information security is the top of everyone’s priority, so people are going gaga over it. Hadn’t it been for top-notch anti-virus software’s, hacking would have become mainstream. For your information, cybercrime can easily become the sole reason for the collapse of an entire firm. Therefore, firms are leaving no stone unturned in making sure that they come up with stellar ways to protect the information to the fullest. Secondly, as iPhones commercial use continues to increase too, managers are making use of all the above-mentioned tips to rest assured about information security. So now is the best time to breathe life into this goal and protect the iPhone’s security.
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