14 DAY TRIAL // The FBI isn’t (yet) willing to share information regarding the San Bernardino iPhone hack with Apple, but the agency’s director has provided some new details about the unlocking method, emphasizing that it works only on the iPhone 5C running iOS 9.
James Comey said on Wednesday that newer iPhones (the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, and SE) cannot be hacked with the solution found by the FBI and used on the San Bernardino device. Comey, however, admitted that this unlocking method was purchased from a third-party, whose name wasn’t yet disclosed and which is very likely to remain anonymous for the time being.
“Litigation between the government and Apple over the San Bernardino phone has ended, because the government has purchased, from a private party, a way to get into that phone, 5C, running iOS 9,” he was quoted as saying by CNN.
The FBI asked Apple earlier this year to help investigators break into the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers who killed 14 people in the December 2015 shootings. Apple refused to provide assistance amid privacy violation and security fears, so the FBI received help from an unnamed third-party that developed a solution to break into the device without compromising data stored on the device.
“Apple wants to block the exploit”
Now that the case has been resolved, Apple’s worried that the FBI could use the same hacking method to break into more iPhones and asked the agency to provide information about this unlocking solution. FBI quickly denied, explaining that the hack would remain secret and if Apple found out about it, a patch can be released to all the other devices.
“The people we bought this from, I know a fair amount about them, and I have a high degree of confidence that they are very good at protecting it, and their motivations align with ours. We tell Apple, then they're going to fix it, then we're back where we started from. We may end up there, we just haven't decided yet,” Comey also added.
It’s not yet clear when the FBI could make a decision, but for the moment, Apple’s expecting the hack to leak, as the agency is already sharing information about the unlocking method with US senators. If this happens, the company can easily deliver a patch to all the other iPhones.