New iOS security feature may reboot your iPhone if it gets stolen

After four days of inactivity, iPhones that run on 18.1 are reportedly starting to reboot.

Apple has introduced a new security feature that makes life harder both for forensics and thieves who want to extract data from the device.

Quietly released with the iOS 18.1 update, the new “Inactivity reboot” feature will reboot an iPhone after it was inactive for four days.

After Android and iOS devices are rebooted, they enter the Before First Unlock (BFU) mode, which doesn’t allow biometric login but requires a passcode. BFU mode also limits what data can be extracted from a device.

The new feature, which Apple did not officially confirm, was first spotted by forensics who tried to unlock stolen iPhones for examination.

According to a report by 404 Media, officials initially thought that Apple might have introduced a new tool that tells nearby iPhones to reboot if they had been disconnected from a cellular network for some time.

However, as noticed by Dr. Jiska Classen, a researcher at the Hasso Plattner Institute, this wasn’t the case.

“[Inactivity reboot] is implemented in keybagd and the AppleSEPKeyStore kernel extension. It seems to have nothing to do with phone/wireless network state. Keystore is used when unlocking the device,” she wrote in a post on X.