i am away from my country if residence and i have received a text assumably from apple asking me to confirm my ID and password in order to secure my data. how do i get confirmation from apple if the text is genuine?

Hello Whistle1957.
Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
If I'm understanding correctly, you'd like some help identifying a suspicious text that you received. It's definitely important for me to know who I am communicating with and I'l be happy to help.
Check out this information below to see if it helps from our article: Avoid phishing emails, fake ‘virus‘ alerts, phony support calls, and other scams
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If you receive a phishing email or text message
Scammers try to copy email and text messages from legitimate companies to trick you into entering personal information and passwords. Never follow links or open attachments in suspicious or unsolicited messages. If you need to change or update personal information, contact the company directly.
These signs can help you identify phishing scams:
The sender’s email address or phone number doesn’t match the name of the company that it claims to be from.
Your email address or phone number is different from the one that you gave that company.
The message starts with a generic greeting, like “Dear customer.” Most legitimate companies will include your name in their messages to you.
A link appears to be legitimate but takes you to a website whose URL doesn’t match the address of the company’s website.*
The message looks significantly different from other messages that you’ve received from the company.
The message requests personal information, like a credit card number or account password.
The message is unsolicited and contains an attachment.

Ignore it. It almost certainly is nothing more than a scam or phishing email.

You can always independently verify your own AppleID at https://appleid.apple.com/