According to Forbes, a well-known U.S. business magazine, a U.S. government contractor claims it can unlock almost all iPhone devices on the market.
This could be a huge breakthrough for law enforcement agencies that used to dispute Apple for a long time to unlock their device from suspects but could also raise a major privacy issue for Apple device users.
According to Forbes, Cellebrite is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan’s Sun Corporation and headquartered in Israel. Its clients include the two major law enforcement agencies in the United States: the FBI and USICE, and one of Cellebrite’s businesses are helping customers unlock their mobile devices.
For law enforcement officials, the ability to crack Apple’s iOS devices is key to law enforcement officials, who often blame Apple and other mobile device makers for taking strong encryption of their products without providing law enforcement.
The Forbes article quotes an unnamed source as saying that Cellebrite has told its clients that its engineers now have the power to break the security of running iOS 11 Apple devices. IOS 11 is released with the latest iPhone X and iPhone 8 smartphones and offers new features designed to make it harder for anyone to break into the iPhone, including law enforcement.
Forbes also pointed out that Cellebrite has not officially announced that it already has the capacity, but its sales representatives have sent a marketing material to law enforcement officials and private forensics companies around the world. The material does not provide specific details but shows that the company is able to unlock most iPhone and Android devices (which may include Samsung Galaxy and Note series, Alcatel, Google Nexus, HTC Huawei, LG, Motorola, ZTE and many other manufacturers Produced by Android smartphone).
Cellebrite’s Marketing Materials wrote: “Cellebrite unlocking is the industry’s leading and unique solution to breaking down most of the latest and most advanced devices on the market, breaking down Apple iOS devices including the iPhone, iPad, iPad mini and iPad Pro iPod touch and operating system from iOS 5 to iOS 11. ”
Although Cellebrite is advertising its own capabilities, it is unclear what kind of information can be extracted from the latest iOS devices.
Although we still cannot judge the authenticity of the story, or if Cellebrite can really crack iPhone X and iPhone 8, the legend of Cellebrite crunched “iPhone Security Mythology” has already been released in 2016.
Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth reported in 2016 that in order to crack a homicide, FBI invited Cellebrite to crack the suspect’s iPhone 5C. And in 2017, according to Spanish media reports, Cellebrite once again helped the FBI successfully cracked iPhone 6’s Secure Enclave. It was also reported that in November last year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cracked the iPhone X of a suspect in an arms trafficking case, possibly with the assistance of a Cellebrite expert.
Apple and Cellebrite have not made any comment at this moment after the publication of Forbes.
