Skip to main content

Apple has pulled an app that told you if your iPhone was hacked

Do you think someone is watching you? Do you worry that your phone has been hacked, and is now sending telltale messages and information back to an anonymous source? If so, it’s apparently too bad. Apple has removed an app called System and Security Info, which was designed to tell you if your phone had been hacked, from the app store.

Apple has a history of being inconsistent when it comes to what can and cannot be available through the app store. According to tweets from the app’s creator, Stefan Esser, Apple went through three revisions of the app before finally deciding to kill the app on the fourth review. Esser believes Apple was waiting for the media hype to die down before pulling the app from the app store.

Recommended Videos

“The only reason our app is pulled and not the others that show system info/jailbreak status is because we put a dent in ‘unbreakable iOS,'” tweeted Esser.

According to Apple the app was pulled for providing “potentially inaccurate and misleading diagnostic functionality.”

Here. It basically says: we do not want our users to have the impression iOS could have security holes. go away. pic.twitter.com/7II1q96ZMt

— Stefan Esser (@i0n1c) May 14, 2016

Once installed on your iPhone, the app had to dig around deep inside to see if it could find evidence of a jailbreak, malware, or what it describes as ‘security anomalies.’ All the information it gathered was presented in a list, giving you an accurate picture of whether your phone was surreptitiously being used to spy on you.

Although jailbreaking an iPhone is usually purposely performed by the owner to give more access to the iPhone’s system than Apple allows, it could also be performed without your knowledge if a hacker had control of your phone for a short while. Done properly, it’s potentially very difficult to know it has happened, but it’s an essential part of any mission to spy on your smartphone activities. Why? Because spyware, and other nasty apps, have to be installed without going through the iTunes App Store, and that requires deeper control.

Before you start really worrying, it’s highly unlikely that your personal iPhone has been a jailbreak victim without you knowing. However, if the iPhone is one given to you by your work, or if it was purchased used, or even if it was lost and recovered, you may feel better checking to see if anything unpleasant had been installed while it was out of your possession. It’s then that the System and Security Info app would have come in handy. Other features include a list of running processes, memory and CPU usage, and an overview of memory use.

Updated on 05-16-2016 by Christian de Looper: Updated article to reflect that the app has been removed from the App Store.

Andy Boxall
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
This one iPadOS 26 feature has me excited for the iPhone Fold
Semi-open state of a foldable iPhone concept

Samsung is set to launch the seventh generation of its Galaxy Z Fold book-style folding phone this Summer, but its biggest rival is yet to show its folding phone hand. Apple has long been expected to unveil an iPhone Fold, and the latest rumors suggest that it will launch next year.

I’ve used almost every folding phone released globally, with some exceptions for extremely obscure ones. While I've always been curious what an iPhone Fold would look like, I was fairly certain that Apple shouldn't build it, as I wasn’t sure they could deliver on one necessary feature.

Read more
These three iOS 26 beta features are my favorite so far
The Liquid Design lock screen on the iOS 26 developer beta 1 running on the iPhone 16 Pro

For fans of the Apple ecosystem, it’s been an incredible week. Apple’s annual WWDC 2025 keynote revealed a whole new Liquid Glass design that’s unified across all its platforms. Also unified across all platforms is the numbering scheme, with iOS 26 designed to represent the year of release… plus one. 

The new platform doesn’t deliver one of the key things I asked for — multitasking, which is available on iPadOS 26 — but it does bring several new features that make the iPhone far more usable. 

Read more
The iPadOS 26 developer beta has transformed my iPad
4 windows open on the iPad Pro 11 on iPadOS 26 developer beta 1

I somewhat called it! In the run-up to WWDC 2025, I asked Apple to please introduce true multitasking to iOS (and by extension, iPadOS). We didn’t get it in iOS, but Apple did unveil an entirely new windowing system on iPadOS 26. With it, they’ve transformed the iPad for me and likely for millions of customers as well.

It’s not just about multitasking: Apple saved the best till last during its WWDC keynote, and the iPad has a host of other features that are further transformative to the iPad experience. I’ve been using the iPad OS 26 developer beta for the past 24 hours, and here’s how it’s transformed my iPad Pro experience.

Read more