Your iPhone keeps an immense amount of personal information, such as messages, photos, bank data, passwords, locations … and more. Therefore, someone tries unlock it without your permission It is something more serious than it seems.
And although most users believe there is no way to find out if someone has tried to access their mobile, the truth is that there is a trick within the Apple ecosystem that allows you to detect if your device has suffered a unauthorized access attempt.
You do not need to install external applications or make Jailbreak. You just have to correctly configure a key function of your Icloud account.
How to know if someone has tried to unlock your iPhone
These are the security reports that Apple includes within the device use history, combined with the use of Face ID, Touch ID and the ICLOUD suspicious activity records. Although there is no function that directly tells you “someone has tried to unlock your iPhone and has failed”, you can get very accurate clues that something is not going well.
The first step is to check if your iPhone has recorded failed unlock attempts. This does not appear as such in the adjustment app, but there is a trick: if you use Face ID and someone tries to unlock your mobile several times without success, You will see a notification that the code has been required because facial recognition has failed. If this happens when you were not in front of the mobile, it is a clear alert signal. The same happens if you use Touch ID and, suddenly, he asks the code after several erroneous reading attempts.
The second key track is in the Connected device history To your account. If you enter Appleid.apple.com and log in, you can see all the devices where your account is active. If anyone who does not recognize appears, someone has tried to enter from another iPhone or iPad. Apple also sends warm emails if someone access from a new device, but if you have these notifications deactivated or ignore them, you may not have noticed.
Another track we will have in the APP Search. From there, you can activate a function called “Send last location”. If someone tries to turn off your mobile without having unlocked it, it will automatically send their position to your Icloud account. This is especially useful in case of theft, but it also gives you a track if your iPhone has been manipulated behind your back.
In addition, there is a little known function in iOS called “Apps Privacy Report”, which you can activate in Settings> Privacy and Safety> Apps Privacy Report (below at all). Although it is designed to control which apps you access your camera, microphone or location, it can also reveal whether any strange app has been activated without your consent, which could indicate a forced access attempt or a security failure.
Finally, there are applications of third parties such as “Lockdown Mode” or business management services that can give you even more detailed reports about these access attempts. They are not essential for the average user, but interesting if you handle sensitive information on your mobile.
It is best to always keep Apple's security notifications activated, use Face ID or Touch ID, never share your code and periodically check the activity records. Because although the iPhone is one of the safest smartphones on the market, knowing how to protect and detect possible threats will always be your best shield.
