Every time Tom Cruise received his mission briefing in the Mission Impossible movies, the briefing message, and often times whatever was playing it, would self-destruct to prevent anyone else from viewing it. In real life this would be a great (albeit dangerous) data protection mechanism. Wouldn't it be great if your iPhone could self-destruct to keep thieves from getting to your personal data if they happened to steal your phone?

The folks at Apple must have been Mission Impossible fans because they have already provided a similar feature for iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPad, minus the explosives of course.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to learn how to turn this feature on so that you can make the data on your iPhone go bye bye if someone enters the wrong passcode too many times or steals your phone.

Here's how to self-destruct (wipe) your iPhone's data in a couple of different situations:

METHOD 1: Remote Data Wipe via Find My iPhone

If you want to remotely wipe out the data on your iPhone in the event that it becomes lost or stolen:

1. Backup your iPhone's data

You should regularly backup your iPhone's data either via USB connection to iTunes or via wireless if supported by your iOS version.

2. Setup the Find My iPhone feature on your iPhone

You must first turn on the 'Find my iPhone' feature on your phone. You must also have an active iCloud account on your device for Find My iPhone to work.

iCloud accounts are available for free from Apple.

In iOS 5.x or above, go to the Settings app, choose "iCloud" and turn "Find My iPhone" to "ON" if it is not already set as such. If your firmware is pre-iOS 5 then you will need to follow these instructions instead.

3. Lock access to your iPhone's Location Services settings

Savvy bad guys will know how to quickly turn the Find My iPhone feature off so you need to disable their ability to turn off locations services. This is done by enabling the iPhone's "restrictions" feature and restricting the ability to modify the "Location Services" settings.

In the iPhone "Settings" app, go to the "General" menu and turn "Restrictions" on. Set a passcode (don't pick and easy one). Scroll down to the "Allow Changes" section and touch the "Location" setting. Make sure the "Find My iPhone" option is set to "ON" and then scroll to the top of the page and choose "Don't Allow Changes".

Setting the "Don't Allow Changes" ensures that thieves can't turn off your iPhone's ability to know its location. The extra time the thief would have to take to try and crack your passcode might make him decide to ditch the phone making its recovery more likely.

In the event that you are sure you aren't going to get your phone back, use the "Remote Data Wipe" feature.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Once you remote wipe the data on your device you will no longer be able to locate it using Find My iPhone. Remote wipe should be used only when you're convinced that you are never going to get your device back. Consider it dead to you once you remote wipe it.

METHOD 2: Self Destruct After Too Many Failed Passcode Attempts

If you want your iPhone to wipe it's data should the wrong passcode be attempted more than 10 times:

1. In the Settings App, choose the "General" menu and then select the "Passcode Lock" option.

2. Choose "Turn Passcode On", set a passcode and confirm it. You may want to consider setting a stronger passcode than the default 4-digit one.

3. At the bottom of the "Passcode Lock" settings page, turn the "Erase Data" option to "ON". Read the warning and choose the "Enable" button.

YET ANOTHER IMPORTANT NOTE:

If you have kids or someone else that uses your phone, the Erase Data on 10 failed passcode tries may not be a good idea. Your 2-year old child might try to guess the code one too many times and BOOM, your iPhone's data is wiped out. The remote wipe feature, while not as secure as the failed passcode wipe option, might make more sense in situations where you have others regularly using (or playing with) your iPhone.