Remote wipe questions

BuulCEO
New Contributor
I am an existing Jamf pro user and urgently need to remote wipe my employees computer due to potential security concerns. 
 
Two questions 1. Am I able to remote wipe a device not connected to the internet? 2. Will I be able to remote wipe data stored in icloud on those devices?  Thank you
3 REPLIES 3

jamf-42
Valued Contributor II

Remote wipe will action once the device has connected to the internet and is powered on past FileVault authentication.

personal iCloud is owned by the user. You have no ability to wipe this.

 

AJPinto
Honored Contributor III
  1. The device needs to be on the internet to see a MDM Command as they come from the internet.
  2. If you wipe the device, that will remove all data and put a password lock on the device. This would include any iCloud data stored ON the device. However iCloud data stored in iCloud will remain intact.
    1. If you are not forcing your users to used managed AppleID's, you should start now. If the user has a personal AppleID, Apple views all the iCloud data as personal property to the user and will do nothing to assist in data sanitization or recovery.

 

One added comment. If you remove the device from JAMF before it receives the MDM Command to wipe, JAMF will obviously stop sending the MDM Command to wipe and the device will never receive that command. Personally I feel device wipes should come from Apple Business Manager rather then the MDM, but here we are.

sk25
Contributor
  1. Remote wiping a device that is not connected to the internet is typically not possible. Remote wiping relies on a device's connectivity to a network or the internet to receive the command to initiate the wipe. Without an internet connection, the device cannot receive such a command remotely.

  2. If your device is connected to iCloud and has the Find My feature enabled, you may be able to remotely wipe the data stored in iCloud on that device. Find My is designed to help locate and secure your Apple devices, including the ability to remotely erase the data on them. You can access Find My on iCloud.com or through the Find My app on another Apple device. From there, you can select the device and initiate a remote wipe command, which will erase the data stored on the device linked to that iCloud account.

It's important to note that remote wiping will permanently delete the data on the device, so be cautious when using this feature and ensure you have a backup of any important data beforehand.