Owning an iPhone is pretty safe and reliable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t end up putting your information at risk.
In today’s technologically advanced day and age, there are a lot of safety features already built into most smartphones. Still, because our phones often house a lot of our valuable information, this means that there are still ways they can be set up for risk. Using information from a data privacy lawyer, we’re listing three ways to keep your iPhone and precious data protected from major security threats. Read more about them below.
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1. Enable A Passcode & Use Face ID
Although this might sound like an obvious answer, some people fail to realize just how important it is to have a secure passcode and enable Face ID whenever possible. They're a super simple way to prevent anyone who holds your iPhone in their hands from accessing your apps and private information.
"The number one best thing you can do to secure your phone is to enable your passcode and FaceID - it might seem inconvenient, but if you don't, you are leaving a great feature of the iPhone unused, and that is full disk encryption on a non-default key," explains data privacy lawyer Alia Luria. "Your iPhone will always encrypt the disk, but if you don't enable a passcode, it will use a default key, which is essentially like offering up the password 'password' to hackers. Enable a 6-digit passcode for better security."
2. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication
Even though it might seem like a pain, using multi-factor authentication on your phone and through your apps is more valuable than you may think when it comes to protecting yourself from security threats.
"Do this not just on the device by using FaceID or TouchID, but do it for iCloud as well, so that no one can break into your iCloud account, and store it for any sensitive apps you have, including banking, medical, etc," says Luria. "To make this truly effective, you want to use a passkey (your face or phone code) or an authenticator app for these logins. That way, even if someone grabs your phone while it's unlocked, they can't log in to your critical apps because the authenticator app is still linked to your FaceID or passcode."
3. Update Your iPhone Regularly
There are some iPhone users who don't like updating their iPhones, as there's a common belief that updating your device to the latest iOS software will cause it to age faster, forcing you to get a new phone. However, tech pros encourage keeping your iPhone updated for numerous reasons, one of them being that you can have the latest security features.
"Apple doesn't just release new software to give you new features," adds Luria. "It releases important security patches this way. I always make sure my phone is updated with the latest software so that I'm getting all the security patches that have been put out there. If your phone is older, and it's stopped being supported by Apple (e.g., they aren't even sending you security patches), it may be time to look into a new phone, because your phone may still be vulnerable if there's a security hole on that iOS version that's still exploitable."
