14 DAY TRIAL //
Turkish police seized an iPhone used by the terrorist who killed the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, and now they are trying to break into the device by cracking the 4-digit code that protects it.
MacReports notes that the phone was an iPhone 4s running an unknown version of iOS, and Turkish investigators are trying to access the information stored on it to check for any incriminatory evidence or any data on terrorist activity within the country.
Hacking into an iPhone has been proved to be particularly difficult, with the FBI itself struggling to do it last year after seizing an Apple device used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists. FBI has even requested Apple to step in and unlock the device, but Cupertino refused on privacy and security grounds, pointing out that it couldn’t hack into an iPhone because of the dangerous precedent that this would have created.
This time, it’s not yet clear if Turkey already contacted Apple to help with the investigation, but there’s a good chance Cupertino will refuse the request to unlock the phone.
Russia stepping in
On the other hand, Russia has already sent a team of security experts to Turkey in order to investigate the phone, and most likely some alternative hacking methods would be tried. All attempts have been unsuccessful until now, but it goes without saying that Russia won’t give up until it breaks into the iPhone.
What’s important to note, however, is that the iPhone 4s should be easier to hack given the fact that it’s not featuring the advanced encryption systems that are available on the latest iPhone models. And given that it’s likely to run an older iOS version, security experts might have the necessary tools to break into it and extract stored data.
Apple is yet to comment on this new case, but don’t expect the company to help Russian authorities to unlock the iPhone after previously saying no to the United States. What’s more worrying, though, is that more terrorists seem to be using iPhones these days, particularly because of this strong encryption that Apple guarantees.