The data recovery effort to copy the iPhone 5c data of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook erred on the pricey side.
Namely, in the neighborhood of $900,000 according to California senator Dianne Feinstein, who mentioned the amount spent recently when questioning FBI director James Comey at a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing.
“I was so struck when San Bernardino happened and you made overtures to allow that device to be opened, and then the FBI had to spend $900,000 to hack it open,” Feinstein commented. “And as I subsequently learned of some of the reason for it, there were good reasons to get into that device.”
While Comey and the FBI have kept the final price tag for the data recovery close to the chest, an assortment of news organizations went through legal channels to learn the final price as well as the contractor used for the service.
That outfit is typically thought to be Israel’s Cellebrite, though the company has remained mum on the issue.
Before it succeeded with a third party, the FBI and the Justice Department were seeking to make Apple build a software workaround, something Apple complained was tantamount to a backdoor that would fundamentally compromise the security of iOS.
A number of U.S. government officials and agencies have stated that the strong encryption protocols used for iOS and iMessage have made it difficult for police and spy agencies to monitor communications. Opposition has come from Apple and other parties arguing for encryption as a privacy and security safeguard.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via AppleInsider and CNBC