APPLE SECURITY UPDATE CLOSES IPHONES ANDROID
Smartphones running Google’s Android software have been generally easier to access, partly because many older devices lack encryption. In the first 10 months of 2017, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said it had recovered and obtained warrants or consent to search 702 locked smartphones, two-thirds of which were iPhones.
APPLE SECURITY UPDATE CLOSES IPHONES SERIES
That has helped solve a series of cases in recent months, including by getting into an iPhone to find videos of a suspect sexually assaulting a child. Michael Sachs, an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, said his office uses workarounds - he declined to specify which - to access locked iPhones several times a week. “They are blatantly protecting criminal activity, and only under the guise of privacy for their clients,” he said. He said the phones had yielded crucial information, and he was upset that Apple planned to close such a useful investigative avenue. Hillar Moore, the district attorney in Baton Rouge, La., said his office had paid Cellebrite thousands of dollars to unlock iPhones in five cases since 2017, including an investigation into the hazing-related death of a fraternity pledge at Louisiana State University. Federal authorities, as well as large state and local police departments, typically have access to the tools, while smaller local agencies enlist the state or federal authorities to help on high-profile cases, they said. Opening locked iPhones through these methods has become more common, law enforcement officials said. Grayshift did not respond to requests for comment. Green said.Ĭellebrite declined to comment. But the Grayshift and Cellebrite software appear to be able to disable that Apple technology, allowing their devices to test thousands of passcodes, Mr. Apple blocked that technique in 2010 by disabling iPhones after a certain number of incorrect attempts. For years, the police used software to break into phones by simply trying every possible passcode. In March, Grayshift began selling a $15,000 GrayKey device that the police can use to unlock iPhones themselves.Īpple has closed loopholes in the past. Law enforcement officials said they generally send iPhones to Cellebrite to unlock, with each phone costing several thousand dollars to open. Since then, two main companies have helped law enforcement hack into iPhones: Cellebrite, an Israeli forensics firm purchased by Japan’s Sun Corporation in 2006, and Grayshift, which was founded by a former Apple engineer in 2016. “We have the greatest respect for law enforcement, and we don’t design our security improvements to frustrate their efforts to do their jobs,” he said. In an email, an Apple spokesman, Fred Sainz, said the company is constantly strengthening security protections and fixes any vulnerability it finds in its phones, partly because criminals could also exploit the same flaws that law enforcement agencies use. A Grayshift device sitting on a desk at a police station, he said, “could very easily leak out into the world.” Green, a professor of cryptography at Johns Hopkins University. “This is a really big vulnerability in Apple’s phones,” said Matthew D.
The Indiana State Police said it unlocked 96 iPhones for various cases this year, each time with a warrant, using a $15,000 device it bought in March from a company called Grayshift.īut privacy advocates said Apple would be right to fix a security flaw that has become easier and cheaper to exploit. “If we go back to the situation where we again don’t have access, now we know directly all the evidence we’ve lost and all the kids we can’t put into a position of safety,” said Chuck Cohen, who leads an Indiana State Police task force on internet crimes against children. News of Apple’s planned software update has begun spreading through security blogs and law enforcement circles - and many in investigative agencies are infuriated. Such a change would hinder law enforcement officials, who have typically been opening locked iPhones by connecting another device running special software to the port, often days or even months after the smartphone was last unlocked.
0 kommentar(er)
