Report Stresses The Importance Of Remembering Your Apple Recovery Key

While passwords and single logins are the default method to log into most websites, it isn’t exactly the most secure as anyone who has figured out your login credentials can easily log into your account. This is where two-step authentication comes into play where it requires an additional code, sometimes sent to your phone, to verify the user.

This is a feature Apple has recently introduced to iCloud and while it is no doubt a boon for those who are extremely concerned about their privacy and security, there is a downside. This comes in the form of a Recovery Key that is needed to retrieve your account in the event that it gets hacked or if someone tried to hack it, and apparently if you forget this Recovery Key, safe to say you’re doomed.

This was discovered by The Next Web’s Owen Williams when he discovered that someone had tried to hack his iCloud account. The account was then locked which sent Williams to iForgot, Apple’s account recovery service and it was there that he had to enter his Recovery Key password in order to get his account back.

As he did not remember the password he used for the Recovery Key, he was in trouble. Calling Apple Support and speaking to friends who work at Apple yielded no success as they all told him that Recovery Key was pretty much the only way he could get his account back, or he could create a new Apple ID instead.

Thankfully Williams managed to dig up his Recovery Key and got his account back, but if anything this serves as a good reminder to users out there who uses Apple’s two-step authentication system – remember your Recovery Key lest you want to lose your Apple ID!

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Web
Tags: icloud, Security