The FBI may have paid a small fortune to unlock an iPhone 5c used by the San Bernardino shooter. But a security researcher has demonstrated a way to do it for less than US $100. The FBI reportedly paid over one million dollars to gain access to the phone.
Sergei Skorobogatov at the University of Cambridge used a technique known as NAND mirroring to bypass the passcode retry limit on an iPhone 5c. Using store-bought equipment, he created copies of the phone’s flash memory to generate more tries to guess the passcode.
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Skorobogatov detailed the whole process in a new paper that disputes the FBI’s assertion that the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone couldn’t be accessed with the NAND mirroring technique.
Prior to paying a contractor, the FBI demanded Apple assist in cracking the phone’s passcode, sparking a major legal tussle over privacy and security.
Skorobogatov’s paper, published on Thursday, provides a working prototype on how to pull off the hack. The equipment he used consisted of off-the-shelf components, and his tests involved iPhone 5cs updated with the latest 9.3 version of iOS.