Privacy Policy

Effective October 24, 2026. Applies to the Vigil app for iPhone, made by Cortex Cybersecurity LLC ("we", "us").

Your account

Everyone signs in, on the free plan too. This lets us limit how often each account can run the internet checks, which keeps them from being misused. You can sign in with Apple or with an email address and password. Accounts are run by Amazon Cognito, part of Amazon Web Services.

We keep:

• Your email address, and whether it's confirmed. If you use Sign in with Apple and choose Hide My Email, we only get Apple's private forwarding address.
• An account ID that Amazon Cognito creates.
• Your plan (Free or Plus) and, for Plus, when it renews, which plan you bought and Apple's transaction ID for it.
• When you last ran an outside check, so we can apply your plan's limit.

We use these only to run your account and your plan. We never use them for marketing, and we don't send you email except a code you ask for (see the breach check below).

Payments

Plus is bought through Apple's App Store. Apple handles your payment and never shares your card or billing details with us. Apple sends us a signed record of the purchase, which tells us which plan you have and until when. To cancel Plus, go to Settings, then your name, then Subscriptions on your iPhone.

What stays on your phone

Everything Vigil learns about your home network is worked out on your phone and kept there. That includes:

• Your Wi-Fi details, such as its name, how it's locked, your phone's address on the network and the router's address.
• The devices Vigil finds on your Wi-Fi, which of them you said are yours, and nicknames you give them.
• Your checkup results, safety score and checkup history, your home safety checklist, and your reminder settings.
• Whether this iPhone has a passcode. iPhone only tells Vigil yes or no; Vigil never sees the passcode.
• Your last internet check results, and the extra email addresses you added to the breach check.
• Your router's make and model, whether Vigil found it or you typed it, and which router warnings you marked as updated.
• On Plus, the homes you've checked (named after their Wi-Fi), each with its own history, and the monthly report made from that history.

To find devices, Vigil talks directly to the other devices on your own Wi-Fi network. That traffic stays inside your home network and is never sent to us. iPhone asks for your permission ("Local Network") first.

iPhone only shares your Wi-Fi's name and how it's locked with apps that have location permission, so Vigil asks for it. Vigil uses it for that alone. It never reads, stores or sends where you are.

If you delete Vigil, iPhone removes all of this from your phone.

What leaves your phone, and why

Vigil only uses the internet for the checks below. Each one sends the least it can.

Check	What is sent	What happens to it
Public address	A simple request to our server. Like every website you visit, our server sees the internet address your home Wi-Fi uses.	The server tells your phone that address and forgets it. We don't store or log it.
Outside check	A request to our server, with your sign-in, asking it to check your home's internet address for open doors.	The server tries a short list of common ports on the address the request came from, and nothing else. It can't be pointed at anyone else's address. Before it checks, it looks up which network owns that address in a list stored on our server, to refuse requests from VPNs and data centers. It sends the results to your phone and keeps none of them. To stop misuse, it counts checks per address for two hours, stored under a scrambled code that can't be turned back into the address.
Is my internet flagged?	A request to our server, with your sign-in. It sees your home's internet address, as above. The request also carries the address of the DNS server (the internet's "phone book") your Wi-Fi uses, which your phone finds with a normal lookup.	Our server asks public spam and security blocklists (Spamhaus, SpamCop, DroneBL and PSBL) whether your address is listed. It also asks Team Cymru's free public service which company runs that DNS server and which runs your internet address, so Vigil can tell you if your phone book is run by someone unexpected. They see lookups coming from our server, not from you or your account. We don't store or log the addresses or the answers. To stop misuse, it counts lookups per address for an hour, stored under a scrambled code that can't be turned back into the address.
Email breach check (Plus)	A request to our server, with your sign-in. If you check an address you added, that address too.	Our server sends the email address to Have I Been Pwned, which replies with the known data breaches it appears in. We pass the answer to your phone and don't store it. See their privacy policy.
Adding an email to the breach check	The address you type.	We email that address a 6-digit code, sent through Amazon Simple Email Service, so only its owner can add it. We keep a scrambled code of each address you add (it can't be turned back into the address) so we can tell it's been confirmed. The readable list stays on your phone. A pending code lasts 15 minutes.
Password check	The first 5 characters of a scrambled code (a SHA-1 hash) made from your password on your phone. Your password itself never leaves your phone.	Sent to the free Pwned Passwords service run by Have I Been Pwned. It replies with a list of possible matches, and your phone checks the list itself. Nobody, including us and them, can tell which password you checked.
iOS up to date	Your phone downloads Apple's public list of the newest iOS for each iPhone model, straight from Apple.	Your phone compares the list with its own version. Nothing about you is sent to us.
Router check	Your phone downloads the US government's public list of known exploited security holes (CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list), from cisa.gov or CISA's public copy on GitHub, about once a week. To learn your router's model, it asks the router itself over your Wi-Fi, which stays inside your home.	Your phone compares the list with your router's model. The model and the result never leave your phone.
App check	About once a day, your iPhone uses Apple's App Attest to prove to our server that the request comes from the real Vigil app. Your iPhone makes a security key that never leaves it, Apple vouches for it once, and after that the key signs a one-time code from our server.	We keep the key's ID and public half, and a counter, so we can check its signatures. They're made by your iPhone for this purpose only and aren't stored with your account, email or address. This stops scripts from misusing our checks.

Our servers run on Amazon Web Services in the United States. Amazon may keep basic technical records needed to run and protect its service. We don't log who you are or what the checks find.

Sharing a report and feedback

If you tap Share, Vigil hands a text report to the app you pick, such as Messages or Mail. It can include your network details. It only goes where you send it. The monthly report (Plus) works the same way, as a PDF.

If you tap Share my score, Vigil makes a picture with only your score and a short line about it. Your Wi-Fi name, devices and addresses are never on it.

If you send feedback from the app, it opens an email to us in your Mail app with your app version and iPhone model filled in. You see everything before you send it.

Tapping "I want this" on something coming to Vigil sends a vote to our server. We count one vote per account for each feature. To do that we keep a scrambled code of your account ID (it can't be turned back into your account) next to the feature's name, and nothing else. Your vote stays in the count if you later delete your account.

Things we don't do

• We don't use analytics, crash reporting, advertising or tracking tools.
• We don't track you across other apps or websites.
• We don't sell, rent or share personal information, except with the services named above to run the checks you ask for.
• We don't read or store your location.

Deleting your account

In Vigil, tap the person icon, then Delete account. We delete your account and everything our server keeps for it: your email, account ID, plan, check history and the scrambled codes of added emails. Deleting your account doesn't cancel a Plus subscription; cancel it in Settings first. Apple keeps its own record of your purchases.

Children

Vigil is made for adults looking after a home network. It isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from children.

Your rights

You can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or delete it yourself in the app. Depending on where you live (for example California or Canada), you may have more rights under local law. Email us and we'll answer.

Our website

This policy is about the Vigil app. On our website, cortexcyber.io, we count visits with Umami, a privacy-friendly analytics service. It uses no cookies and doesn't identify you or follow you to other sites. It records which pages are viewed, which buttons are clicked, the site that sent you there, and your general country and device type. The app itself has no analytics.

Changes to this policy

If Vigil adds features that change what we collect, we'll update this page and the date at the top before those features ship, and tell you in the app if a change matters.

Contact us

Cortex Cybersecurity LLC
Email: support@cortexcyber.io