How to protect yourself from iPhone thieves locking you out of your own device

For now, however, there are a handful of steps users can take to potentially protect themselves from having this happen to them.

Protect the passcode

The first step is protecting the passcode.

An Apple spokesperson told CNN people can use Face ID or Touch ID when unlocking their phone in public to avoid revealing their passcode to anyone who might be watching.

Users can also set up a longer, alphanumeric passcode that’s harder for bad actors to figure out. Device owners should also change the passcode immediately if they believe someone else has seen it.

Screen Time settings

Another step someone could consider is a hack not necessarily endorsed by Apple but one that’s been circulating online. Within an iPhone’s Screen Time setting, which allows guardians to set up restrictions on how kids can use the device, there is the option to set up a secondary password that would be required from any user before they could successfully change an Apple ID.

By enabling this, a thief would be prompted for that secondary password before changing an Apple ID password.

Back up phone regularly

Finally, users can protect themselves by regularly backing up an iPhone – via iCloud or iTunes – so data can be recovered in the case an iPhone is stolen. At the same time, users may want to consider storing important photos or other sensitive files and data in another cloud service, such as Google Photos, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon Photos or Dropbox.

This won’t stop a bad actor from gaining access to the device, but it should limit some of the fallout if it ever should happen.