NATO approves iPhone, iPad for use with classified information

Apple's mobile devices may soon help secure world peace.

Apple announced this week that the iPhone and iPad were approved to handle secure and classified information for NATO, requiring no additional software or settings. In other words, the iPhone and iPad are secure enough out-of-the-box to handle NATO's classified data. 

This marks the first time a consumer device has received this designation. In the past, devices required heavy modification, either on the software or hardware level, to meet NATO's strict security requirements. Apple's devices are currently the only consumer devices approved for use by NATO.

To be specific, only devices running iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 with the "Indigo Configuration" are approved by NATO. The Indigo Configuration is a specific configuration setup devised by the German Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, or BSI. This is Germany's government office that oversees data and information security. While this does not require any additional software to be installed on the device, it does require mobile software management (MSM) and other settings to be tweaked. 

NATO highlighted Apple's Secure Enclave, encrypted Face ID, and Memory Integrity Management as key facets in the iPhone's and iPad's security stacks. It is interesting that currently only the iPhone and iPad are approved by NATO; none of Apple's computers have made the cut thus far.