Keep your phone and Monzo app up to date

When your Monzo app is up to date with the latest version, you can be sure you’re getting the best app experience on offer. When you’re using a supported and fully updated version of iOS or Android, your device has all the protection it can get against the latest security threats.

We release a new version of our mobile apps weekly. Each new version comes with what we’ve been busily working on over the previous week - most often this will be new features such as Trends or Monzo Flex, improvements to existing features such as setting contactless spending limits, or fixes for bugs. Sometimes these changes will be to improve a security or privacy related feature. For example, in the past we’ve added an additional layer of end-to-end encryption to protect sensitive data. This includes things like your PIN or card number. This means, if we were to have a data breach, the risk of your sensitive data being exposed is reduced.

So the more recent the version of your Monzo app, the better it is for you. Occasionally, we’ll remind you in the app to update to the latest version. We do this to make sure all customers are getting the very best Monzo app experience.

To make app updates easier and avoid ever being reminded, you can opt in to automatic app updates. This is usually turned on by default – but if it’s not turned on for you, you can do it yourself by following these instructions for iOS, or these for Android.

Your Monzo app runs on either the iOS or Android operating system. New versions of these operating systems come out regularly: there’s usually a big launch of one new version every year (e.g. iOS 15 and Android 12 came in 2021), as well as a varying number of smaller updates.

These new versions will often contain security features and security patches, both of which are important to install.

New security features make it harder for an attacker to successfully compromise your phone. For example, iOS 15 brought changes to Face ID to improve the protections around anti-spoofing, and Android 12 now blocks untrusted touch events and prevents apps from closing system dialogs.

Security patches are important because they fix (or ‘patch’, hence ‘security patches’) known flaws that an attacker could use to compromise your phone. Older versions of iOS and Android are no longer supported by Apple or Google – usually a phone (or tablet) is supported for a certain period of time before being considered obsolete. This means they no longer get any updates at all – including security patches. 

If you’re using a phone running an unsupported version, it’s at higher risk of being compromised. Attackers who succeed in compromising it could potentially steal data, or prevent your phone from working. In December 2021, Apple patched a vulnerability in iMessage which gave the attacker full access to a compromised device. Samsung patched an exploit in 2020 where a malicious MMS could also be used to hijack a device.

This is why we recommend using the latest version of iOS or Android your phone supports, and to always use a device which is still receiving updates.

You can find out more about whether your phone is still receiving updates by going to Apple's security update page or Google's security bulletin. You can also turn on automatic updates for iOS and Android to make sure you’re updating your device with the latest updates as soon as possible. It’s usually turned on by default, but could have been turned off. To check this, you can do the following: