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How to Enable Stolen Device Protection on iPhone

I would love to be able to turn it OFF. I try form my home but somehow that is not a familiar location. I try to wait the 1 hour countdown but never actually get a message saying it is ready, so I go back in and have to start the 1 hour all over again.

Not having my house, which is my address in my contact, all my Apple info, not be familiar is a real PITA.
 
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canyonblue737 said:
**DO NOT DO THIS UNTIL APPLE RESOLVES AN ONGOING ISSUE WHERE SOME APPLE IDs ARE DEMANDING RESETS WITH NO WARNING SINCE LAST WEEK, THIS IS STILL HAPPENING AS OF TODAY 5/2/24 WITH NO WORD FROM APPLE WHY.**

If you set the stolen device protection and a random reset occurs while outside of your home you could be locked out of your devices for an extended period of time. Be very careful... I have a 20+ year Apple ID account getting reset every day or two right now. More details and a forum thread can be found here: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/27/apple-id-accounts-logging-out-users/
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I had Stolen Device Protection on and just shut it off. The widespread Apple ID password issue rattled me last weekend when all my devices suddenly froze up. Until Apple gives some kind of explanation, I'm inclined to not complicate my own Apple ID setup with any further layers of protection.
 
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ignatius345 said:
I had mine on and just shut it off. The widespread Apple ID password issue rattled me last weekend when all my devices suddenly froze up. Until Apple gives some kind of explanation, I'm inclined to not complicate my own Apple ID setup with any further layers of protection.
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Right now the odds of Apple locking you out of your own account (at least since last week) are MUCH higher than some thief seeing you manually enter your code at a bar, and then stealing the device.
 
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canyonblue737 said:
Right now the odds of Apple locking you out of your own account (at least since last week) are MUCH higher than some thief seeing you manually enter your code at a bar, and then stealing the device.
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I'm all for extra protection of my Apple ID, but unfortunately right now it seems like turning on SDP is more of a potential liability, especially if I'm caught away from home and this happens again.

My Apple Watch is still throwing up alerts about my Apple ID, but refuses to let me paste in the password through my phone. Fortunately my other devices are all ok now.
 
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arkitect said:
Haha!

With my experience last week of being locked out of my Apple account for days, spending hours with AppleCare support to no avail?

I'm not touching this with a barge pole.
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Can't agree with you more!
After what happened on Friday on all my devices I switched it off.
Locations+ SDP are working when there is a planet conjunction
For sure you have more chances to win the lottery.
 
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zapmymac said:
If this step is too drastic for you, I suggest a Yubico key or similar. Set it up, and forget about it...pretty straightforward to do...get 2 keys though. Be safe out there.
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FIDO2 is a replacement for passcode based activation of account on a new device (2nd step of 2FA). It was implemented to protect users from their accounts being stolen remotely using social engineering. It doesn't stop thief from changing password should they know passcode (1st step of 2FA).
 
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LOL I turned it off last Saturday after I reset my iCloud password and moved my contacts/calendars out of iCloud.

Almost a WEEK after the random iCloud account locking and to my knowledge Cupertino has still said nothing. I'm only one person, but as a career securitygeek, to not even acknowledge a problem that FUNDAMENTALLY hits people in its ecosystem and threatens their digital livelihood does not inspire confidence in Apple. But then again, should we expect anything different since they still can't run a stable cloud service to save their lives.
 
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It's absurd that the password screen still displays the code letter by letter unobscured in the middle of the screen! Device Protection is great but it's like like Fort Knox with no doors. Apple needs simply to hide (not display) the code on screen!! Problem solved.
 
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I dont get what protection the 1-hr delay allows. Once that passes, cant the thief still reset an Apple ID?

The issue is not breaking into the phone, it's taking over the apple ID.
 
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ozaz said:
You're probably being specifically targeted if a thief is going to go to that much trouble. I suspect most people who use this feature are more concerned about potential for account takeover in the event of opportunistic theft/muggings.
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No you would not have to be targeted.

See also "F-Secure Is iPhone’s Stolen Device Protection Enough to be a Gamechanger? We Tested It."

"Having the element of surprise and an elaborate plan on how to unlock the iPhone, thieves might reach the victim’s home address before the victim. And simply standing near the entrance of the building or under their house (could be guessed from the house number for example) renders the protection feature useless."

Is iPhone’s Stolen Device Protection enough to be a gamechanger? | F‑Secure

How secure is Apple's Stolen Device Protection? We put it to the test to see if it really keeps your iPhone and data safe from thieves.
blog.f-secure.com blog.f-secure.com
 
LlamaLarry said:
This happened to me last Friday/Saturday when my iCloud account did its thing. A forced reboot of the AW and iPhone fixed it for me. Worth a shot if you haven't already tried.
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I did try force restarting iPhone and AW, and unfortunately it didn't do anything. The AW seems to be doing everything it's supposed to be doing -- including Apple Pay -- but it throws up the same "update Apple ID settings" alert about once a day. I may have to wipe it and set it up again, I guess.
 
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LlamaLarry said:
I would love to be able to turn it OFF. I try form my home but somehow that is not a familiar location. I try to wait the 1 hour countdown but never actually get a message saying it is ready, so I go back in and have to start the 1 hour all over again.

Not having my house, which is my address in my contact, all my Apple info, not be familiar is a real PITA.
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i had the same problem.
here was my workaround to this.

once you need to initiate steps to get back control of your device:
first, set the screen to not auto lock (Settings/Display & Brightness/Autolock: set autolock to never)
second, once you begin the process to wait an hour, dont turn off the display - leave it so that on the screen you can see the timer counting down 1 hour.
at the end of the hour, even if you aren't at the device exactly after an hour, the instruction as to what to do is still there and waiting for your input.

going through all this hassle was enough for me to say to myself "if i ever get out of this loop i will turn this feature off completely"
especially since, as in my case, i am using iPhone SE with Touch ID, and, if, at the same time while this process is kicked in your fingerprint itself is not working because of all the reasons why fingerprints need to be re-entered from to time, it becomes an even more serious cliff hanger if you will ever regain control of your device.
add to that in my case where GPS in my area often has my phone location placed about 40 meters way from my actual home location, it wasn't thinking i was at home so it required that 1 hour wait...

i appreciate apple trying this. and i think it could work for a lot of people, but i will wait for the next generation of it before i turn it on again.
 
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Yeah, "familiar places" is busted right now as I WFH (for 7 years) so I don't go many other places. Not to recognize my primary residence as a place to disable Stolen Device Protection really makes me wonder *where* is can be disabled without the timer.
 
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canyonblue737 said:
You can find an article and thread about it on Macrumors. Hundreds in the forum alone are affected, including me, with an Apple ID account over 20+ years old (.me). While I have been able to reset the password when it randomly locked me out and demanded an immediate password change, this has now happened twice since Friday. Some in the forum have been locked out of their accounts and gotten messages FROM APPLE saying they will be locked out for a certain amount of days (in one case 12 days!) and specifically says again, from Apple, that customer service will not be able to help them until that period of time elapses so don't bother trying. If you enable this stolen device feature while this error is ongoing and aren't home you risk being unable to be allowed to reset your password and could be locked out of your Apple ID account. No one knows why this is occurring, Apple has stated NOTHING, and there is growing concern that a subset of Apple ID's have been compromised and so in the meanwhile Apple has forced these resets and doesn't want to say anything until it is resolved.
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The stolen device protection is designed to add a 1 hour delay. Cases of people being locked out for days are presumably being triggered by some other security policy.
 
dewalt said:
I dont get what protection the 1-hr delay allows. Once that passes, cant the thief still reset an Apple ID?

The issue is not breaking into the phone, it's taking over the apple ID.
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Its to give you time to take actions such as using another trusted device to remove the stolen device from your list of trusted devices. Once that's done, I believe the thief won't be able to use the stolen device to authenticate Apple ID password reset request.

But I do feel 1 hour is a bit on the short side. I'd prefer if Apple gave users more choice here. I'd opt for around 3 hours if there was choice.
 
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What happens if (a) Stolen Device Protection [SDP] is set to "Always" rather than "Away from Familiar Locations", and (b) Face ID is no longer functional (e.g., the iPhone has become damaged)? In this scenario where biometric authentication is unavailable, how can a user regain access to the iOS settings that are secured by SDP?
 
Pleonasm said:
What happens if (a) Stolen Device Protection [SDP] is set to "Always" rather than "Away from Familiar Locations", and (b) Face ID is no longer functional (e.g., the iPhone has become damaged)? In this scenario where biometric authentication is unavailable, how can a user regain access to the iOS settings that are secured by SDP?
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By erasing device remotely (e.g. through https://www.icloud.com/find/) and recovering from backup?
 
ozaz said:
But I do feel 1 hour is a bit on the short side. I'd prefer if Apple gave users more choice here. I'd opt for around 3 hours if there was choice.
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Agreed. For a "one hour window" the stolen phone function in my book is worthless.

Is the best protection of an apple id password still the ScreenTime feature?
 
ypl said:
By erasing device remotely (e.g. through https://www.icloud.com/find/) and recovering from backup?
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@ypl, your suggestion is an innovative possibility. I suspect the procedure would be successful if Stolen Device Protection [SDP] is automatically disabled when setting up a new iPhone from a backup of an old iPhone. Does anyone on the forum know from experience if this is true?

P.S.: I am assuming SDP is set to "Always," rather than "Away from Familiar Locations."
 
Pleonasm said:
@ypl, your suggestion is an innovative possibility. I suspect the procedure would be successful if Stolen Device Protection [SDP] is automatically disabled when setting up a new iPhone from a backup of an old iPhone. Does anyone on the forum know from experience if this is true?

P.S.: I am assuming SDP is set to "Always," rather than "Away from Familiar Locations."
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What's the difference? Even if SDP will be set to on when restoring your backup data to new device, you will be asked to activate FaceID anyway (FaceID data is always kept locally, iOS does not have access to it). So the problem od SDP being blocked because of broken FaceID HW won't be valid anymore?

SDP is designed to protect user's data when device is stolen, not device as such (which is protected by AppleID lock).
 
ypl said:
Even if SDP will be set to on when restoring your backup data to new device, you will be asked to activate FaceID anyway (FaceID data is always kept locally, iOS does not have access to it). So the problem od SDP being blocked because of broken FaceID HW won't be valid anymore?
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@ypl, the (potential) problem is that Stolen Device Protection [SDP] is designed to prevent an unauthenticated user from performing this action: "Add or remove Face ID."

If SDP is automatically active on a new iPhone that has been setup from a backup of an old iPhone with SDP enabled as "Always," then a user may be unable to add Face ID on the new iPhone - and, therefore, be unable to access iOS settings that are secured by SDP?

P.S.: SDP is also designed to prevent using "your iPhone to set up a new device" which may further complicate the situation?
 
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