Your Passcodes Are Easy To Figure Out
One of the easiest, quickest ways for hackers to hack into your phone is completely avoidable: stop using your birthday (or mom’s name or “1234” as your password. It’s completely understandable: you have dozens of apps that all require different passwords — why make things more difficult on yourself?
But by not creating a longer, more complicated passcode, you are putting your phone and yourself at risk.
According to Macworld, a hacking tool called GrayKey has been used to successfully figure out iPhone and iPad passcodes: “It's understood that the tool was being used by law-enforcement agencies, and could crack a four-digit passcode in a couple of hours. A six-digit code can be cracked in a few days.”
If GrayKey is a threat to your phone, the assumption is that there are other tools hackers can use to easily crack your code.
MacWorld offers a few important tips on how to ensure your passcode is impenetrable:
“Choose a long passcode: one that's longer than six digits. It could take a few months to hack an eight-digit pin, and a ten-digit pin could take a decade to crack! Use a passphrase containing words, rather than numbers. But use random words that wouldn’t normally appear together.
While passcodes only use numbers 0-9, a passphrase includes numbers, letters, symbols and case-sensitivity which should make your iPhone a lot harder to break into - although it may take a little longer to unlock your iPhone when you want to use it.”
Coming up with more complex passwords is one way to keep your phone safe. Other important steps include: updating iOS whenever new software becomes available, activating Find My iPhone, and not opening unknown links that are sent to you — even if you recognize the sender.