FBI officials have allegedly managed to break into one of the two iPhones owned by Mohammed Saeed Aishamrani. In December last year, a mass shooting took place at Naval Air Station in Florida. The attack was carried out by Aishamrani and the FBI had found two iPhones protected with encryption.
Responding to a question during a Rajya Sabha session, Indian telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the strong encryption measures being employed by Apple and other smartphone makers to secure and protect the data stored in smartphones is posing a challenge to law enforcement agencies.
The FBI has obtained a warrant from a Los Angeles court ordering a woman to unlock her Touch ID-protected iPhone. The woman, Paystar Bkhchadzhyan, had pleaded no contest to a felony charge of identity theft on February 25. Less than an hour after she was taken from the courtroom, U.S. Magistrate Judge Alicia Rosenberg signed a warrant that compelled the woman to unlock her iPhone via Touch ID.
A report from Reuters citing “several U.S. government sources” claims that the FBI paid less than $1 million to the third-party to unlock the iPhone 5c of the San Bernardino shooter. The FBI director had previously indicated that the law enforcement agency had paid nearly $1.3 million to unlock Farook’s iPhone 5c.
The FBI has confirmed that it informed Apple of a vulnerability in its iPhone software on April 14. It’s thought to be the first time the bureau has disclosed a flaw to Apple as part of the so-called Vulnerability Equities Process.
CNN reports that cracking open the iPhone 5c of one of the San Bernardino shooter did not provide the FBI with new leads, but it did help answer some of the remaining questions of the probe.
The iPhone exploit that allowed the FBI to access an iPhone 5c used by terror suspect Syed Farook is unlikely to be shared with Apple, according to a new report. It is thought the flaw was found by a private company that maintains ownership of it.
A report from CBS News citing a law enforcement source says that FBI has not found anything of “real significance” on the iPhone 5c of Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino shooter. The source, however, “stressed’ that the FBI is still analysing the data it has retrieved from the phone, so there is still a possibility for the law enforcement agency to eventually find some valuable data on the phone.
Up until now, it was widely believed that FBI had taken the help of an Israeli forensics company Cellebrite to unlock the iPhone 5c of the San Bernardino’s shooter. However, a new report from The Washington Post claims that FBI had taken the help of “professional hackers” who managed to achieve this feat using a flaw in Apple’s software that the company does not know about.
