It seems not a week goes by where we hear about another security risk when it comes to our digital lives. Usually, these risks come from big data breeches–think a credit card company being hacked and the hackers making off with all your personal data. Then there are other security risks popping up all the time. These include bugs found in popular Ones, which allow a malicious attacker to infiltrate your systems more easily. And of course, there are the more personal attacks: those people that could get close enough to grab our phones and try to extract data from them.

These attackers don’t even have to be hackers in the traditional sense. They might just be a nosey lover or family member who wants to see what’s you your iPhone X. With that in mind, Apple created the iPhone X with the most secure biometrics ever in a phone: Face ID. But besides activating Face ID, there are a number of other steps you can take to make your iPhone X even more secure.

iPhone X Security: Require Attention For Face ID

The thing everyone wants to make sure is activated on their iPhone X is the attention requirement for Face ID. This features means that Face ID doesn’t only need to see your face to unlock the iPhone X, but it needs to see that you are actually looking at your phone in order for the device to be unlocked. Apple built this option into Face ID so no one could simply take your iPhone X while you were sleeping an hold it up to your face to unlock it. With the attention feature active, Face ID will require your eyes not only to be open but to be actively looking at your iPhone X to unlock it. To make sure this is turned on got to Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Require Attention for Face ID and make sure the switch is toggled to ON (green).

iPhone X Security: Disable Access When Locked

Even though you have Face ID enabled, other people could theoretically interact with your iPhone X even when it is locked if you have Access When Locked features enabled for Today View, Recent Notifications, Control Center, Siri, Reply With Message, Home Control, and Return Missed Calls. These features are enabled by default so its easy for the user to access commonly used controls without having to unlock his phone. But this also leaves your iPhone X open to being used (albeit in a limited manner) by other people. If you’re worried about that, it’s best to disable Access When Locked features. To do so go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode and under “Allow Access When Locked” toggle the switches to OFF (white).

iPhone X Security: Set A Password, Not a Passcode

Face ID requires you to set up a passcode that you can use to access your iPhone X if Face ID ever fails to recognize your face. By default, most people set a 4-digit passcode. But that means there are only 9999 possible combinations people need to go through to gain access to your iPhone. Instead, you might want to set up a password instead of a 4-digit pin. Yes, it’s more of a pain to type in a password, but it’s also much harder for an intruder to guess. To set one up go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Change Passcode and follow the instructions.

iPhone X Security: Set Data To Automatically Erase

This is the “nuclear option”. You can set your iPhone X to automatically erase all your data on it when someone enters your wrong pin or passcode ten times in a row. This means that a thief at most has ten chances to gain access to your phone. If they can’t by then, they’ll never be able to gain access to your data because the iPhone will automatically delete everything. To set this up got to Settings > Face ID & Passcode > and google Erase Data to ON (green).

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