Published on February 10th, 2023 | by Sunit Nandi

How to Protect Your iPhone from Theft

Smartphones especially iPhones are valuable and in demand. As such, they are targets for thieves who make money selling them on the black market. They also make money from your data. If you think about it, financial information together with other sensitive information is money for any would be thief.

As such, we thought it would be prudent to provide advice to make your iPhone as secure as possible and to protect your data should it fall into the wrong hands.

Common Sense

One of the biggest deterrents against iPhone theft is to use common sense. Never leave your phone out in the open and unattended in a public place. This makes you an easy mark for a nefarious type.

If you do decide to make a call in the street think about what kind of neighborhood is it. If you feel it is a little suspect, go into a coffee shop or wait till you feel safer.

Never lend your phone to a stranger. If you feel the stranger is genuine, dial the number for them and hold the phone putting it on speaker. If they protest it is time to leave.

This kind of thing keeps your phone where it should be: With you!

Apps

There are a number of apps that can help keep your phone secure. If you have little in the way of security now is the time to find the best security apps for iPhone and install them. Here’s a brief guide as to what you want:

VPN – VPN’s mask your IP address and protects any data that is transferred between you and whatever site you’re trying to access. For sensitive information such as banking details, this is a must have.
Locator app – There are apps designed to make your phone a beacon so should it be lost or stolen you can find it again. Make sure you get one that goes the extra mile and enables you to lock the phone remotely and wipe data if necessary to keep it out of the wrong hands.
Information protection – Some apps allow you to put sensitive information and indeed apps themselves in a kind of secure locker. As this only opens when you use Touch or Face ID it increases the security level of anything inside the secure locker considerably.
Encrypted web browser – Not all web browsers are created equal and as such it is a good idea to use one that put encryption front and center. Browsers are quite vulnerable generally, but an encrypted browser gives you that extra level of protection.

Phishing

There is little an app can do to protect you from phishing. The only way to prevent it is to be aware of it and to use common sense and checklists to ensure you don’t make a mistake and give out account details to a nefarious character.

Phishing attacks are getting cleverer by the day and so if you get an email or text message ‘from your bank’ or ‘Amazon’, do a little checking first. Is that a valid email address? When did you last buy something from Amazon? This kind of checks can spare you a world of pain.

Apple Support has more information on the subject.

Tags: how to, iPhone, protect, theft

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.