Unlocking an iPhone without Apple: the FBI made this bet

We remember the Cupertino giant's categorical refusal to comply with the FBI regarding the unlocking of the 2 iPhones found during the attack on the Pensacola base in Florida in the United States.

An attack that killed 3 people and injured 8 people. The phones that were supposed to belong to the shooter. Despite Apple's positioning, the FBI recently announced that it had successfully unlocked one of the criminal's iPhones.

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The information was leaked on Monday following a statement made at a press conference by Christopher Wray, the director of the U.S. Federal Police and William Barr, the U.S. Attorney General. According to them, the FBI managed the feat of hacking an iPhone and accessing the contents of one of the phones of the culprit of the attack, known as Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani. Thanks to this feat of the specialists of the U.S. Federal Police, the authorities were able to have some information to highlight certain areas of shadow in their investigation. And according to his information, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani is directly linked to Al Qaeda.

The U.S. authorities did not fail to raise the really successful fact of any assistance from the Cupertino firm. "We didn't get any help from Apple. Christopher Wray, the head of the federal police, noted strongly, despite the fact that the U.S. Attorney General had engaged in a tussle with the American digital giant in recent months, accusing him of refusing to participate in a criminal investigation, even though his assistance was substantial. Despite this, the U.S. authorities managed to unlock access that was intentionally damaged by the criminal. As a result, they were able to discover that he had a complex relationship with Al Qaeda operatives located in the Arabian Peninsula. They were also able to find a will stored in the attacker's smartphone. A will that was published two months after the attack on the American base by the alleged leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, at the time when he came to claim the attack on behalf of his organization. "The evidence we have been able to gather from the killer's devices shows that the Pensacola attack was in fact the brutal culmination of years of planning and preparation," the US Federal Police chief said.

It should be noted that this is one of the few times that authorities have been able to access the encrypted content of an iPhone-type smartphone. Being in our case iPhones 5 and 7, it is difficult to determine if this could be repeated in the future and on other models of the American brand. This is what the head of the federal office points out when he says, "Unfortunately, the technique we have developed is not a solution to our overall problem." While the head of the U.S. Federal Police denies receiving outside help, some computer security experts have indicated that the FBI may have used cellebrite, an Israeli company whose industry would be the development of hacking tools. The latter did not want to declare anything on the subject

The Cupertino firm, for its part, is defending itself against the charges of the U.S. Attorney General. It believes it has accomplished what it had to accomplish within legal limits such as providing iCloud backups, transaction data, account information… "The false statements made about our society are an excuse to weaken encryption and other security measures that protect millions of users and our national security. This is because we take our responsibility to national security so seriously that we do not believe in the creation of a backdoor, which will make every device vulnerable to malicious people who threaten our national security and the security of our customers' data. said Apple.

One wonders how long this tussle between the FBI and Apple will continue. It was not the first time and it will certainly not be the last.

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