Defending your telephone towards on-line assaults is significant, however the identical measures will not maintain up when your telephone is stolen. If you wish to actually defend your telephone, it is time you begin locking it down towards theft simply as a lot as you defend it towards hacks and scams.
1
Allow Theft Safety Options
Step one in defending your telephone towards theft is to allow the anti-theft options constructed into the working system. Begin by enabling the Discover Hub and Discover My monitoring on Android and iOS gadgets, respectively.
Android 16 (launched 2025) has a complete Superior Safety suite of options that has a number of layers of safety to guard your telephone in case of theft. This additionally features a Theft Detection Lock characteristic that routinely locks your telephone if it detects it has been snatched out of your hand.
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You additionally get an Offline System Lock characteristic that routinely locks your telephone when it is offline. Lastly, the Inactivity reboot characteristic restarts your telephone if it stays locked for 3 days in a row, locking it once more in case a thief received previous the lock display.
iOS has Stolen System Safety, which hardens safety measures and provides an hour-long safety delay when delicate system settings are modified. This provides you further time to lock your telephone remotely in case of theft.
2
Begin Utilizing an eSIM
Whereas utilizing an eSIM would not essentially defend your machine from being stolen, it does make it tough for thieves to take advantage of your machine or promote it off. eSIMs cannot be swapped out as simply as conventional SIM playing cards, which means thieves cannot begin utilizing your telephone with one other community, and it additionally makes your telephone simpler to trace by way of cell triangulation.
eSIMs are susceptible to hacking, however it requires refined technical information to drag off such an exploit. This massively reduces the motivation for thieves to steal telephones as they are often remotely locked and rendered unusable at any second.
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eSIMs are safer, however they don’t seem to be excellent.
3
Allow Biometric Locks on Delicate Apps
Locking your delicate apps behind biometric locks prevents thieves from accessing your knowledge, even when they’ll bypass the lock display. iOS affords a built-in technique to lock apps behind Face ID or Contact ID, and virtually all delicate apps on Android, similar to these utilized by your financial institution, require you to make use of biometric locks by default.
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You possibly can lock apps on iOS by tapping and holding an app icon on your property display, app library, or Highlight search and deciding on Require Face ID. Android would not supply a built-in technique of locking any machine behind a biometric lock, however you may lock any app in Android’s Non-public area to pressure a biometric verification earlier than any app may be accessed. These apps are additionally hidden by default out of your common app drawer, so a thief would have a tough time discovering delicate apps within the first place.
4
Allow Any Monitoring Options
Apple’s Discover My community is complete, with hundreds of thousands of gadgets worldwide pinging one another’s places on a map. You can too mark your iPhone misplaced on iCloud to assist find it by way of Apple’s Discover My community.
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With out Discover My, you will have a tough time finding your Apple gadgets.
These options lock your telephone, so even when the thief is aware of your passcode, they’re going to nonetheless be locked out of your machine, because it requires Face ID or Contact ID to function. You possibly can even discover your iPhone if it is offline in some circumstances.
Google’s additionally exhausting at work enhancing its personal monitoring community, and the Discover My app is getting an entire lot higher with upcoming Android variations. As per How-To Geek, in 2025, the Moto Tag, the AirTag’s Android counterpart, acquired ultra-wideband assist for extra correct monitoring, and this characteristic is predicted to be launched in additional Android trackers sooner or later.
Extra superior monitoring options require sure {hardware}. In the event you’re utilizing a finances or mid-tier Android telephone, likelihood is you will not have entry to those. Nevertheless, the Discover Hub (previously Discover My System) works even when your telephone is switched off, so there’s at all times mild on the finish of the tunnel.
5
Allow Manufacturing facility Reset Protections
Android has Manufacturing facility Reset Safety that makes your telephone virtually unusable in case it is stolen. When a manufacturing facility reset is initiated by way of the restoration menu or by means of the Discover Hub, Android routinely prompts these protections. This requires you to enter both the final PIN, password, sample, or signal into the final Google account related to the telephone to confirm possession.
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Your Android telephone will lock itself to oblivion somewhat than be reset.
If this knowledge is not offered, the telephone will not transfer previous the preliminary setup stage, successfully rendering it ineffective. Google is engaged on additional enhancing the characteristic in Android 16 by forcing the telephone to undergo one other reset, which concurrently restricts all performance if a manufacturing facility reset is carried out with out authorization.
This additionally means all of your safety settings, together with Discover Hub monitoring settings, will stay in place whatever the manufacturing facility reset makes an attempt. It makes monitoring down your misplaced telephone simpler whereas additionally making certain the thief cannot promote it off on the second-hand market.
6
Maintain Your Cellphone Up to date
That is an apparent one, however one of the best ways of making certain you have received all the most recent safety and privateness protections is to maintain your telephone up to date. Each Google and Apple always launch options that defend your telephone towards on-line assaults and theft, and updating your telephone as quickly as these updates land ensures you have received the most recent options.
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These options can usually be the distinction between a misplaced and a recovered telephone. Even when they explicitly do not add theft safety options, they nonetheless defend your telephone towards the most recent exploits and hacks {that a} thief can use to interrupt by means of current options and unlock your telephone. That safety should not be taken as a right.
7
Use a Tether
That is doubtless the oldest trick within the e book, but when you do not need one thing stolen, tethering it to your physique may be fairly an efficient strategy to stop a fast snatch assault. Now, I am not asking you to start out strolling round together with your telephone tied to a motorcycle lock, however some firms promote telephone tethers or lanyards that primarily connect your telephone to your physique with a twine. You possibly can choose one up on Amazon for as little as $10.
I’ve used a DailyObjects telephone lanyard prior to now, and I am personally not an enormous fan of this technique. Having your telephone dangling round whenever you’re out and about would possibly defend it towards snatches and theft, however it additionally means you will doubtless bump it into random doorways and objects. Working the danger of cracking my display to guard my telephone towards theft is not fairly the safety I am on the lookout for.
That mentioned, this technique is the strongest safety you should utilize towards telephone theft, and it did save my telephone as soon as in a crowded bus. If you’re in a crowded space, thieves and pickpockets can sneak away together with your telephone. Having it connected to your physique offers you an opportunity to catch the thief in motion.
Defending your telephone towards theft is simply as essential as defending it towards on-line threats. The method is not tough, and with just a few toggles and settings, you will be as safe as attainable. That mentioned, it is at all times a good suggestion to concentrate to your devices whenever you’re out and about so they do not get stolen within the first place.
