These security sign-in messages are ridiculous.

These security sign-in messages are ridiculous.

I agree. However, given your description of the annoyance I strongly suggest you consider the authenticity of the two-factor challenge that you are encountering so frequently.

When it appears, it should never be a surprise. Its appearance means that someone, somewhere, attempted to use your Apple ID to authenticate the use of an Apple product or service. That someone may have been you, or it may have been someone else. Its appearance will coincide immediately upon using your Apple ID. If it appeared unbidden with no obvious explanation, or even as much as a minute or two after you used your Apple ID, then it's almost certainly a fraudulent attempt.

Whenever I encounter it, no matter where on Earth I might happen to be, the challenge always occurs immediately. Easily within one second, regardless of the particular Internet connection speed I may happen to attain at the moment. That doesn't mean there might be some latency for some people sometimes, but that just doesn't happen to be my experience. With the hundreds of challenges I have seen to date, not a single one has occurred with anything other than immediate effect.

You appear to be concerned about the geographic proximity to your actual location, and I agree with that also. I have had my alleged "location" differ from my actual location by hundreds of miles. It is derived from the IP address (most likely, an IPv4 address) that has been previously associated with a geographical location, and to be completely technically accurate, it has no idea where your Mac happens to be. One might question the usefulness of that location information, but in my opinion some information is better than none at all.

Something isn't right. I sincerely hope I'm wrong about that, but I suggest you look into it a little more deeply before you dismiss it as a mere annoyance.

Having to continually change login information, passwords and related credentials as you described is another "red flag" that justifies concern.

It is not a few hours later, it is instant.

If it is not you who were not doing this, then there won't be anywhere to insert the code.

Let me explain with a simple example.

Suppose you grab a friend's computer, open a browser and go to www.icloud.com

It is you and it is your account.

Now this computer is not associated with your account, but your iPhone is.

You will immediately get a message on your iPhone with this 6 digit code.

You will then enter this code on your friend's computer, to make sure it is you, so you can use that computer to access your account this one time.

But suppose it was someone else that somehow figured out your icloud password, and tried to access. Since only YOU receive the 6 digit code, that other person won't be able to login, even though they may know the right password.

This is how two-factor authentication works.

One factor: the password

Another factor: a trusted device in your possession (in the above example, your iPhone).

You are still missing the point.

If the code appears on your mac it means that your mac is one of your “trusted” devices. Let’s say tour trusted devices are: your mac “M” and your iPhone, “P”.

When someone tries to access your account on some device “D” (which could be one of your trusted devices or not), you may receive a code in “M” and “P”.

If it is indeed you, you need to enter the code in “D”.

So in your situation you probably were using your mac, and that’s where you’d have to type the code. The window where you were supposed to type that code may have been partially obscured by the window showing that same code. Just memorize the code, close tgat window and type it in the window that was behind it.

When someone

Well did you try to access that account just now, or didn’t you? If you didn’t, then just do nothing. If you did, then enter the code. Annoying? Yes, especially if it does so repeatedly. Some time ago there was a bug where this came every single time one accessed one’s icloud account. But ince a month? Not that big a nuisance.

Ewan Lamont wrote:

The GPS location message just now was about a device "near London, England", was it me? Well maybe it was but between where I am, Edinburgh, Scotland and London, England there are about fifty-five million people. I was given a pass number to enter somewhere but I couldn't see where. Then I got a "bad gateway" message. But either I got signed in or someone pretending to be me got signed in but I don't care because I got signed in too.

Everyone is at it. I spend more and more of my day reviewing "security" and, because I can't remember most of my usernames and passwords, I spend the rest of my day creating new sign-ins and revising my sites.

You do not mention how you connect to the internet...

Depending on your ISP (Internet Service Provider,) especially if satellite, or cellular it can often show varying locations as the service jockeys for the best connection, which ends up showing you in differing locations. No issue here.

Having multiple devices, having Blue tooth turn on, granting GPS access in preferences, having WiFi turned on, proximity to other users with there own devices— all helps in dialing in your exact location...sometimes better than others.

If the Maps app isn't working on your Apple device - Apple ...

Location Services - Apple Support

Turn Location Services and GPS on or off on your iPhone, iPad

Location Services & Privacy - Apple Support

That's your provider routine. One would assume 'local' but mostly not so...