14 DAY TRIAL // The FBI discovered key information on the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone that it hacked last month, law enforcement officials have revealed, but no links to ISIS or other terrorists were found on the device.
The FBI demanded that Apple help investigators break into the iPhone used by terrorist Syed Farook for planning the San Bernardino attacks, but the Cupertino-based company refused to do so on claims that hacking one of its devices would only lead to more security and privacy threats for customers.
The agency, however, managed to unlock the phone on its own with help from an unnamed group of hackers, despite Apple saying that breaking into the device might be useless because the terrorist was very unlikely to store any critical data on it.
And it appears that Apple was wrong, or at least that’s what the FBI claims, as the feds actually found valuable information on the phone after hacking it.
“It help answer some questions”
Although US officials haven’t specifically revealed what exactly they discovered on the iPhone, they’ve actually mentioned what they didn’t. There were no links to ISIS or other terrorist groups on the phone.
The FBI’s investigation had an 18-minute gap in the timeline recreating the events in December 2015, and the feds believed that the iPhone was used during this time to get in touch with other terrorists or ISIS supporters who helped plan the attacks. But after hacking this phone, the FBI managed to “answer some remaining questions in the ongoing probe,” US officials have been quoted as saying by CNN.
So there you go, the FBI didn’t find anything that could help them advance with their investigation, but they did discover information that can help them answer these questions.
The dispute between FBI and Apple continues these days, but this time involving an iPhone involved in a New York case that once again Cupertino refuses to hack. The FBI claims that the San Bernardino hack can’t be used in this case, so it presses for Apple to step in and unlock the device on its own.