System logs carried forward across upgrades?

iPhone 16, iOS 18.7.2 after upgrade from 18.7.2 to iOS 26.1


Are system logs carried forward across major iOS upgrades?


Context: probably beginning during a cable ISP area-wide outage of several hours duration, per cellular carrier, someone logged in to our cellular carrier account (before 2fa initiated, mea culpa) and over the course of about 4 hours, over most of which we were asleep, i.e. not using our phones, ~2GB of data were logged through the cellular network, putting us well above our monthly data cap. If possible, I want to determine the nature of the data that moved across the network from? or via? this phone, e.g. 1)Contacts exfiltrated? e.g 2)pinging associated with DDoS attack?. I thought a good start might be to review the system logs. Soon after we determined the spurious data usage was real, we updated from 18.7.2 to 26.1. I expect to go to a local Apple Store for assistance with this, but without logs from the time, the reason for the visit vanishes.


Thanks for your thoughts.

iPhone 16, iOS 26

Posted on Dec 20, 2025 9:20 AM

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System logs carried forward across upgrades?

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