14 DAY TRIAL // After it managed to break into the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers, the FBI is ready to go over more phones that store criminal data and which cannot be unlocked by investigators.
In a letter sent to local law enforcement agencies and obtained by BuzzFeed, the FBI reveals that it’s ready to jump in and help prosecutors get access to locked phones if they believe that these can store information critical to the investigation.
“As has been our longstanding policy, the FBI will of course consider any tool that might be helpful to our partners. Please know that we will continue to do everything we can to help you consistent with our legal and policy constraints. You have our commitment that we will maintain an open dialogue with you. We are in this together,” the letter sent by the FBI reads.
The hacking method expected to leak
Obviously, the feds haven’t missed the occasion to pride themselves with the fact that they managed to break into the San Bernardino iPhone without Apple’s help, explaining that the unlock software was provided by “a third party.” The name of the company that helped hack the iPhone wasn’t provided.
“As the FBI continued to conduct its own research, and as a result of the worldwide publicity and attention generated by the litigation with Apple, others outside the U.S. government continued to contact the U.S. government offering avenues of possible research. In mid-March, an outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method for unlocking the iPhone. That method for unlocking that specific iPhone proved successful,” it says.
The FBI hasn’t mentioned whether it plans to use the same method developed for the San Bernardino iPhone on other devices too, but the organization’s chiefs previously guaranteed that this is a one-time-use hack and no other phones would be unlocked using it.
More recently, Apple security engineers stated that they expect the FBI to attempt to use it once again on other devices, which should lead to a leak of the method developed by the third party. This should allow Apple to find out about the code used for the hack and patch it with an iOS update.