Strange passcode dialog: feature or malware?

I just did a hard reset of my phone and the problem seems to be gone. The box hasn't popped up again, but it hasn't been a full hour yet. However, I do find it a little disturbing that no one from Apple has commented on this topic, and it's been up for at least a year.

This same exact thing happened to me today. I have no profiles when I go into settings. Just curious if you've found anything out yet?

I got the same message today aswell. Infact I have a profile installed; but it's Tunnelbear VPN a company which I totally trust.

My passcode wasn't weak and I have no MDM nor Exchange sync.

But why does iOS wants me to change from a 6 digit passcode to a 4 digit passcode?! This doesn`t make sense at all.

<Personal Information Edited by Host>

If there was a link in it the message was a scam.

I received similar message about an hour ago and after doing it I quickly became suspicious as I've never had this in years of owning iPhones. I have just contacted Apple Support (typed into Google and went onto Apple site) I put in a contact number and they contacted me back within 30 seconds! I spoke to a guy that said - this is not something that would have come from Apple as someone can change their passcode or indeed choose to have one if they desire. He recommended that I went through the Settings - Passcode then changed my number on that and disregard the link screen that popped up! He then said to go through Settings again then clear all Safari history and data as this may have came from a site or some link online. Hope this helps somebody else! J

Thanks so much J! This gave me some peace of mind.

thank you ! this worked for me. But I only restarted and quit safari in the fast app switcher. i didn't need to clear the cache or history. What a weird experience.

I had this pop up last night. It was not fixed by hard resetting. I dont have any VPN or work emails set up. I fixed it by deleting my gmail account from Mail and using the gmail app. I will be adding gmail back to Mail tonight.

Hope this helps

Had this pop-up this morning, first changed my passcode myself through Settings > Touch ID & passcode > change passcode. Then i went on to settings > safari > clear history and website data. This appears to have worked for me. Thanks!

I had it pop up just now, so I called Apple Care. The rep looked into it and found that it actually is from Apple but it is a mistake and said to disregard it. He said it happened a few years ago (as you can see in this thread) and started to happen again recently. He said to ignore it - I did - first I powered my phone off and on, but the message came back. Then I got rid of it by pressing the round home key. Hope this helps...good to know that it isn't malware...

I got this message today and obliged without thinking, stupid I know =_=' and then got scared it was malware so reset my settings and deleted Safari settings.

So AppleCare told you this was from Apple but was just a mistake? I can't tell you how relieved I am hearing this, thank you so much for posting this, I was having a panic attack thinking I'd left my iPad open to all sorts of nasty bugs, I won't be as quick to click in future.

Thank you so much ^_^

Happened to me this lunchtime running iPhone 6 on iOS 9.3.1

I saw the message and pressed LATER but within 5 mins it was back... the message then changed to EMERGENCY or CHANGE - the home button didn't work and I had no option but to change the passcode... I changed it to itself without any problem but now really concern about Malware on the phone.

I have no corporate email/profile accounts on my phone but I do have the iTunesConnect app on my phone (installed last week) as I track sales of my book.

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This is a user-to-user technical support forum. Apple is not here. If you want to talk to Apple use the Contact Us link at the bottom of every page.

Sorry Lawrence thats not entity correct, Apple is here... they deleted one of my posts directly above this one then edited without my permission after I posted it again. They also regularly post comments and suggestions on the Apple Community Forums.

Okay, you need the long explanation. What I posted is correct with respect to your post. Here's the details:

• Apple is a very big company, with hundreds of thousands of employees
• A small group among those hundreds of thousands have the task of managing and moderating ASC. They are called "hosts"
• Hosts are not engineers, they are not in marketing, or in sales. They have no input to any of those areas. They have one job, to keep ASC running smoothly
• Hosts do not read the forum, except under special circumstances:
  • Any user at level 2 or higher has a "Report post" button, which opens a dialog where the user can enter a note that a post should be reviewed. A host reads the note, then reads the post, and decides if the post should be edited, removed, or left as is
  • If posts by the same user are reported several times, that user may be added to a watch list, and all of their posts will be reviewed for a while
• There is one other class of Apple employees who read posts - Community Specialists. They are not engineers, are not in marketing or in sales either. Their one job is to respond to posts that have not received any answers in 24 hours. They are restricted to providing links to published Apple support articles, and to a limited degree, explaining them. Community Specialists have an Apple logo  under their username.
• Finally, if there is a widespread problem that affects a lot of users (usually meaning thousands), an Apple engineer working on the problem may search the forum for reports that may help troubleshoot the issue. This is very rare, and happens only a few times a year. The engineer may contact a user directly to get information that may help resolve the issue, such as diagnostic logs. When this happens most of the time you as a user won't know about it, unless you were the one contacted.

I hope this clears up any confusion my previous post caused.