The Feds Can Now (Probably) Unlock Every iPhone Model In Existence

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: February 28, 2018 at 8:07:22 AM EST
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The Feds Can Now (Probably) Unlock Every iPhone Model In Existence
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> The Feds Can Now (Probably) Unlock Every iPhone Model In Existence
> By Thomas Fox-Brewster
> Feb 26 2018
> <https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/02/26/government-can-access-any-apple-iphone-cellebrite/amp/>
>
> In what appears to be a major breakthrough for law enforcement, and a possible privacy problem for Apple customers, a 
> major U.S. government contractor claims to have found a way to unlock pretty much every iPhone on the market.
>
> Cellebrite, a Petah Tikva, Israel-based vendor that’s become the U.S. government’s company of choice when it comes to 
> unlocking mobile devices, is this month telling customers its engineers currently have the ability to get around the 
> security of devices running iOS 11. That includes the iPhone X, a model that Forbes has learned was successfully 
> raided for data by the Department for Homeland Security back in November 2017, most likely with Cellebrite technology.
>
> The Israeli firm, a subsidiary of Japan’s Sun Corporation, hasn’t made any major public announcement about its new 
> iOS capabilities. But Forbes was told by sources (who asked to remain anonymous as they weren’t authorized to talk on 
> the matter) that in the last few months the company has developed undisclosed techniques to get into iOS 11 and is 
> advertising them to law enforcement and private forensics folk across the globe. Indeed, the company’s literature for 
> its Advanced Unlocking and Extraction Services offering now notes the company can break the security of “Apple iOS 
> devices and operating systems, including iPhone, iPad, iPad mini, iPad Pro and iPod touch, running iOS 5 to iOS 11.” 
> Separately, a source in the police forensics community told Forbes he’d been told by Cellebrite it could unlock the 
> iPhone 8. He believed the same was most probably true for the iPhone X, as security across both of Apple’s newest 
> devices worked in much the same way.
>
> iOS 11 was only released in September last year and was even praised by Cellebrite competitor Elcomsoft for new 
> features that were designed to make it harder for forensics experts to hack into an iPhone. That included protections 
> against forced unlocks with fingerprints, a tactic previously used by U.S. police in the field.
>
> Though it’s always wise to take the claims of profit-focused vendors with a pinch of salt, whatever flaws Cellebrite 
> found in Apple’s tech in the last half year, they’re likely significant; just last year, the company warned about a 
> decline in its ability to break into iPhones.
>
> To take advantage of the Cellebrite service, which “can determine or disable the PIN, pattern, password screen locks 
> or passcodes on the latest Apple iOS and Google Android devices,” cops have to send the device to Cellebrite first. 
> In its labs, the company then uses whatever secret exploits it has to crack the lock and either hands it back to 
> investigators so they can take data from the device, or Cellebrite can do that for them. As Forbes previously 
> detailed, this can be relatively inexpensive, costing as little as $1,500 per unlock. Given there’s a $1 million 
> price tag for a single iPhone vulnerability, that’s cheap.
>
> Cellebrite could put its latest iPhone unlocking tech into the software it sells to customers. But that would mean 
> Apple could test the tool and potentially figure out a way to stop it working, explained Don Vilfer, a partner at 
> private forensics firm VAND Group, who welcomed the new services. Vilfer said his company has already had some 
> success with the iOS 11 service, in a case where a client’s employee wouldn’t give over their passcode for their work 
> iPhone, though he recalled it was an iPhone 6 model, not one of the most recent devices.
>
> Neither Apple nor Cellebrite had provided comment at the time of publication.
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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