Given the security issues between text messages sent between iPhones and Androids, I'd like to automatically reject text messages from any Android user. Ideally, there would be some kind of indication to them that their text message cannot be sent to my iPhone for this reason. Is there a way to calibrate this in Settings? Thank you.
iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 18
I’m unaware of any reports of security issues between Android, iPhone, or among other SMS clients.
I am aware of SMS spam, scams, and fraudulent claims.
That miasma is entirely platform-independent.
There is no means to block a specific platform, if that is even known.
You can get SMS disabled, but that can block two-factor authentication codes from systems still using SMS.
And Apple will fall back to using SMS when iMessage is unavailable.
As for filtering specific messages, an app such as Bouncer might interest.
I believe the poster is referring to the texts not being encrypted. It is not a security concern for an iPhone, it is the messaging protocol, and personally I would not recommend texting personal/financial information to another user anyway.
Mac Jim ID wrote:
I believe the poster is referring to the texts not being encrypted. It is not a security concern for an iPhone, it is the messaging protocol, and personally I would not recommend texting personal/financial information to another user anyway.
Maybe. Possibly.
But SMS was never encrypted, and can’t be. Which is part of why SMS two-factor authentication can be problematic.
As for RCS, yeah, the RCS standard didn’t have encryption included, though that was recently remedied and related updates will likely be arriving.
There are no security issues with SMS or MMS messages other than the fact that they are not encrypted and can't be considered "secure" communication. That's been true since those protocols were first introduced many years ago. That hasn't changed.
If you're worried about your messages being intercepted and read, then don't send SMS or MMS messages. Rejecting those messages from other senders won't do anything to prevent them from being compromised. If they were going to be compromised, that would happen before you received them.
There is a difference between good, common sense security practices and "paranoia". This is starting to approach, if not cross that line.
You can block specific numbers, but not an entire platform no. And no, if you block them they will not get informed they were blocked. They'll get no indication it was blocked.
How do I reject texts from Android phones?
