Cellebrite, an Israeli security firm, is on board with the Federal Bureau of Investigation actively trying to crack the encrypted iPhone 5C in their possession. This is the same iPhone 5C used in the horrible crimes that happened in San Bernadino California by terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik. The same iPhone 5C that Apple CEO Tim Cook has refused to build a back door into for the FBI and continues to remain defiant of a court order to do so.
If Cellebrite is successful in cracking the iPhone, the case against Apple could very well be dropped. In just recent days Apple iMessage was found to have an exploit that allowed a hacker to gain access to encrypted media and decrypt it. It’s also been shown that iOS is indeed not as hacker proof as some might think. A new exploit discovered can gain access to an iPhone and the FBI is actively speaking to the hackers who discovered the exploit. Apple has not been notified of the exploit findings yet and therefore has not patched this particular hole.
The whole case against Apple could very well be a moot point if Cellebrite accomplishes the task at hand. This means (as we already knew) that even the strongest encryption is able to be hacked and cracked, the FBI just has to work harder to do it. Former founder of the McAfee antivirus program John McAfee has even offered to crack the iPhone in question for the FBI but has not been taken up on the offer. We shall see how Cellebrite fares against Apple’s much touted encryption methods.
What do you think of these new developments in the iPhone San Bernadino case? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or on Twitter, Facebook and Google+
[button link=”http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-encryption-cellebrite-idUSKCN0WP17J” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Reuters[/button]Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
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