Increase your device protection with a longer iPhone passcode

Do you know how secure your iPhone is?

Are you using the four digit passcode and feel pretty good that it is protected?

Think again.  Read on to find out how to make your iPhone more secure.

 

It seems like a pretty simple idea, but until the recent hacking horror story, I hadn’t really thought about it: the four digit iPhone passcode option is really weak.

For the times you want to passcode protect your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, you need something more than a four digit code. A typical four digit numeric code can be cracked by a PC in a matter of minutes. Law enforcement officials use special software called XRY which can crack the standard four digit iPhone code in less an two minutes.

Fortunately, iOS allows some ways to increase security quickly. Within a few minutes you can set up the option to enter a passcode up to 37 characters (numbers, letters, symbols) in length by following these simple steps:

1. On your iOS device go Settings —-> General —-> Passcode Lock

2. Turn “off” simple passcode (the four digit one) and Turn on Passcode if you have not been using it.

3. You come to this screen:

4. At this point, you can enter up to a 37 character password, the longer the stronger. For example, the passcode, “iphonepasscode” would take a desktop PC about 511 years to crack.

Posted by Shawn Roberts

On this blog, I write about and try to answer practical Oklahoma legal questions. My focus and most experience is in estate planning and business issues including Oklahoma non-compete law. I make a living as an attorney in the law firm I founded, Shawn J. Roberts, P.C. in Oklahoma City. I live in Edmond with my wife Amy and my two children, Sam (19) and David (11). We live precisely in the path of where the "wind comes sweeping down the plains."