As Apple stands firm against requests to break iPhone encryption, many people have questioned why the FBI needs Apple’s help in the first place. There are plenty of tools available from third-party companies that are more than capable of unlocking the iPhone 5 and iPhone 7 used by the Pensacola gunman.
Further emphasizing that point, a new report from Forbes says that the FBI recently used one of those black/gray market tools to unlock the newest — and theoretically the most secure — iPhone that Apple sells.
Apple is reportedly preparing for a bizarre legal battle with the FBI over its demands for the Cupertino company to help it break into two iPhones used by the Pensacola Naval Air Station shooter.
The company was previously prepared to fight the FBI in court over the same demand with the San Bernardino iPhones before the agency backed down…
There’s a lot of publicity right now about the FBI’s request for Apple to help them unlock two iPhones owned by a murder suspect who opened fire at a Florida navy base.
However, what has gone underreported is the fact that the two iPhones in question are actually old models, an iPhone 5 and an iPhone 7.
As noted by the Wall Street Journal today, these devices are so old that their security has already been compromised. Plenty of security firms on the gray/black market are available to unlock older iPhone models, so why does the FBI need Apple?
There are obvious similarities between the San Bernardino and Pensacola cases. Not just that both relate to shootings and involve two iPhones, but also the fact that the FBI has decided to go public with its request for Apple to help…
The FBI is again asking Apple to unlock two iPhones belonging to a suspected shooter.
The last time this happened, in the San Bernardino case, Apple refused. The current case relates to last month’s shooting at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, where three people were killed…
Former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, who fought Apple on the San Bernardino iPhone case, says that he has now rethought some of his views on strong encryption.
Baker left the FBI last year to join a DC-based think tank, where his role is to write for the justice-focused blog, Lawfare…
The Cellebrite Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED) is a smartphone hacking tool commonly used by the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies in the US and elsewhere. It’s the most powerful tool yet created by the Israeli company, able to extract a huge amount of data – even data which has been deleted from phones.
A brand new one normally costs $5,000 to $15,000 depending on the model, but older models can be found on eBay for as little as $100 …
A senior FBI official who testified to Congress during its battle with Apple over access to a locked iPhone has said that end-to-end encryption ‘infects’ law enforcement.
The remark was made as Apple and other tech companies warn of the danger of compromising strong encryption after the Australian government passed a law which would require them to help access encrypted messages on demand …
We learned last week that a second Apple employee has been accused of stealing trade secrets from the company’s Project Titan research into self-driving car technology. The FBI was called in, and the criminal complaint now filed by the FBI reveal some of the steps Apple takes to protect product development secrets …
In one of the stranger and belated twists to Apple’s battle with the FBI over the San Bernardino iPhone, Oracle founder Larry Ellison has criticized the company.
He told Fox that Apple’s refusal to create a weakened version of iOS dubbed GovOS was a ‘bizarre’ decision …
A bipartisan bill being put before Congress would eliminate the possibility of any future battles between Apple and the government over backdoor access to iPhones. Apple famously fought the FBI when it demanded the firm create a compromised version of iOS to access a work iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.
The Secure Data Act would ‘prohibit Federal agencies from mandating the deployment of vulnerabilities in data security technologies’ …
A Higher Loyalty, the memoir/exposé written by former FBI director James Comey, is now available for pre-order on iPhone and iPad, ahead of its official publication date tomorrow.
In the book –subtitled Truth, lies and leadership – Comey likens President Trump to a ‘mob boss’ who is ‘untethered to the truth’ and morally unfit to be president. But he also doesn’t hold back about Apple’s decision not to help the FBI in the San Bernardino shooting, describing it as ‘appalling’ …
It’s been a few years since the Apple vs FBI case, where The FBI asked Apple if they could create a backdoor into their operating system for law enforcement to easily access iPhone data.
A Department of Justice investigation has concluded that the FBI inadvertently misled Congress when it said that it had exhausted all attempts to access the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers.
The FBI claimed in a court filing that it had no means to access data stored on the iPhone without Apple’s assistance, a claim later repeated to Congress. A report covering this statement concludes that while it was technically true, it gave a misleading impression …
The heads of the FBI, CIA, NSA and three other US intelligence agencies have warned Americans not to buy Huawei smartphones, or indeed any other Huawei products and services.
The reason is somewhat ironic in view of the agency’s battle with Apple …
While the battle between the FBI and Apple over backdoor access to iPhones ended without a legal ruling, it seems the European Union takes Apple’s side. The European Parliament has proposed legislation which would safeguard data privacy and specifically outlaw the creation of backdoors for law enforcement agencies.
The proposed legislation would also provide a legal right to use end-to-end encryption, preventing individual EU countries from banning its use …
The battle between the FBI and Apple over the San Bernardino iPhone may (for now) be long over, but one question remained: just how much did the FBI pay a third-party company to access the device?
FBI director James Comey yesterday told a Senate oversight committee that the FBI has been unable to access almost half of the mobile devices it tried to examine in the first half of the fiscal year, reports TechCrunch.
Comey said the FBI had been unable to access the contents of more than 3,000 mobile devices in the first half of the fiscal year, using what he described as “appropriate and available technical tools, even though there was the legal authority to do so.” He said that represented “nearly half” of all the mobile devices it had attempted to access in that time frame.
Comey made the statement in apparent support of the latest attempt at forcing phone manufacturers to provide backdoor access to the authorities …
Apple has joined Amazon and Microsoft in a court filing which supports Google’s decision to resist an FBI warrant demanding that it hand over emails stored outside the USA. The tech companies argue that this would set a ‘troubling’ precedent.
Business Insider reports that the FBI served search warrants ordering Google to hand over emails belonging to suspects in a criminal investigation. The emails in question were stored on a server stored outside the USA, and Google refused, arguing that a domestic search warrant could not apply to data stored in a foreign country …
The WSJ reports that Apple engineers are working to address the remaining iOS exploits reportedly used by the CIA, but they and other tech companies are being hampered by two factors. The first is lack of any access to the code itself.
Apple engineers quickly began calling colleagues to bring them up to speed on the data dump and to coordinate the company’s response to this new security threat, according to a person familiar with the situation […]
Companies now find themselves in a difficult position: They believe that at least two organizations have access to hacking code that exploits their products — the CIA and WikiLeaks — but neither one is sharing this software …
FBI Director James Comey – who has previously attacked Apple for refusing to create a weak version of iOS to allow government access to iPhones – has said that Americans have no right to expect absolute privacy. CNN has a video clip of Comey making the statement yesterday at a Boston College conference on cybersecurity.
Even our communications with our spouses, with our clergy members, with our attorneys are not absolutely private in America […] There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America; there is no place outside of judicial reach …
Update: Edward Snowden has tweeted that the code names are real and would only be known by a cleared insider. The BBC has reported that some of the iOS malware allows ‘the agency to see a target’s location, activate their device’s camera and microphone, and read text communications.’
What makes this look real? Program & office names, such as the JQJ (IOC) crypt series, are real. Only a cleared insider could know them.
Wikileaks claims that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has a specialized unit within its Center for Cyber Intelligence that is devoted to developing and obtaining zero-day exploits for iOS devices. A zero-day exploit is one unknown to Apple or security researchers, so cannot specifically be protected against.
Despite iPhone’s minority share (14.5%) of the global smart phone market in 2016, a specialized unit in the CIA’s Mobile Development Branch produces malware to infest, control and exfiltrate data from iPhones and other Apple products running iOS, such as iPads. CIA’s arsenal includes numerous local and remote “zero days” developed by CIA or obtained from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber arms contractors such as Baitshop. The disproportionate focus on iOS may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites.
Wikileaks further claims that the CIA recently ‘lost control’ of the majority of the malware used to attack iPhones and iPads …
The San Bernardino iPhone hack story rumbles on, with three news organizations insisting that there is no good reason for the FBI to withhold the cost of accessing the phone. Associated Press, Vice Media and USA Today have asked a US judge to force the FBI to reveal the information, reports the BBC …
