The U.S. government may not actually need Apple’s help to break iPhone encryption, as the FBI appears to have done this on its own.
According to a recent Forbes article, FBI investigators in Ohio recently used the GrayKey hardware box to unlock an iPhone 11 Pro Max. The iPhone belonged to Baris Ali Koch, who was accused of helping his convicted brother flee the country following the Pensacola shooting by providing him with his own ID documents and lying to the police. He has now entered a plea agreement and is awaiting sentencing.
Koch’s lawyer stated that the iPhone had been locked with a passcode when the FBI took possession of it. The code was never revealed to law enforcement, nor was the defendant forced to use his face to unlock the phone via Face ID.
As we’ve written about before, the GrayKey, created by a security company named “Grayshift,” is a portable gray code cracking box that has been used to crack the passcode on iPhones. Complete details as to how the latest GrayKey works are not known, although Apple has released fixes to address the exploits used by such devices.
The Forbes article noted that a GrayKey brochure demonstrated how the device opened older iPhones, and the iPhones associated with the Pensacola shooting case are an iPhone 5 and and iPhone 7, which suggest that investigators were capable of unlocking them.
President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr have also weighed in on the latest iPhone encryption stalemate between Apple and the FBI, with both urging the tech giant to assist in unlocking the iPhones used by the Pensacola shooter.
Justice department officials have also stated they need access to the iPhones to see messages from encrypted apps like Signal or WhatsApp to find out if the shooter discussed his plans or had help. For its part, Apple claims that it has already provided law enforcement officials with everything from the shooter’s iCloud account, which amounts to all the data in the company’s possession.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.