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You mean like automatically erasing the device after 10 incorrect passcode attempts? That option has been built in to the iPhone pretty much since the beginning.
No. An example would be automatically erase if the device has not been unlocked in 3 days.
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They could also have iOS 11 jailbreak exploits in their possession. iOS 11 was already jailbroken recently and the Project Zero team has also informed Apple of exploits they discovered.
It's been many years since I've even glanced at an iOS jailbreak, but since when can you jailbreak a locked device?
[1]https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=everything+appl...
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Fwiw, Apple has a $100k bounty on this type of exploit (pulling secrets from the secure enclave).
But Cellebrite apparently makes millions off of its service, so the economic incentives are still on their side.
But if they cracked the SE, and kept that fact to themselves, they would be making even more money because every government on the planet would be coming to them. This is provided they kept it to themselves.
It would mean a significant spike in the number of phones being cracked and people being arrested/charged/hung/etc. This would be a statistic that would jump off the charts and trigger Apple to essentially develop a solution straight away.
The only way this would work is if they had cracked the SE and are doing an Enigma: keeping it top secret and only cracking very high profile targets with the technology, which I guess is possible.
I'm too lazy to find a link for it, but last time I read about Cellebrite, they were cloning the data and simply trying unlock codes in sequence until one worked. They could restore the cloned data before each try, or possibly do it on custom hardware or an emulator, and start with a fresh copy each time, so they never triggered "erase after 10 failures". It's a pretty straightforward approach, but it doesn't scale w…
This is not true. You cannot just clone the data and run passcodes against it, because the data is not encrypted by your passcode. Instead, each file on iOS 11 is encrypted with a different AES 256-bit key, and cracking even one 256-bit key through exhaustive search is thought to be out of reach of humankind ( https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/6141/amount-of-... ). The file keys are wrapped by, among other…
(If that sounds sarcastic it's not meant to, genuine question as I don't know much a about this stuff!).
Bruce Schneier says¹: > There's also a credible rumor that Cellebrite's mechanisms only defeat the mechanism that limits the number of password attempts. It does not allow engineers to move the encrypted data off the phone and run an offline password cracker. If this is true, then strong passwords are still secure. ¹ https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/02/cellebrite_un...
>The story I hear is that Cellebrite hires ex-Apple engineers and moves them to countries where Apple can't prosecute them under the DMCA or its equivalents. Crazy if true. Doesn't this also create a weird incentive problem where the FBI (or any other law enforcement agency) who would normally be tasked with helping Apple with this doesn't actually want to?
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>The story I hear is that Cellebrite hires ex-Apple engineers and moves them to countries where Apple can't prosecute them under the DMCA or its equivalents. Crazy if true. Doesn't this also create a weird incentive problem where the FBI (or any other law enforcement agency) who would normally be tasked with helping Apple with this doesn't actually want to?
It’s absolutely untrue that ex-Apple employees are helping them break in. Apple employees do not have an advantage in creating this type of thing.
I'm too lazy to find a link for it, but last time I read about Cellebrite, they were cloning the data and simply trying unlock codes in sequence until one worked. They could restore the cloned data before each try, or possibly do it on custom hardware or an emulator, and start with a fresh copy each time, so they never triggered "erase after 10 failures". It's a pretty straightforward approach, but it doesn't scale w…
This is not true. You cannot just clone the data and run passcodes against it, because the data is not encrypted by your passcode. Instead, each file on iOS 11 is encrypted with a different AES 256-bit key, and cracking even one 256-bit key through exhaustive search is thought to be out of reach of humankind ( https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/6141/amount-of-... ). The file keys are wrapped by, among other…
I think the Secure Enclave has independent built-in mechanisms for keeping track of the number of times things have happened though.
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Relative to the size of its population, Israel has a highly developed electronics engineering related industry. Part of it related to their state support of domestic defense contractors like IAI and their avionics/radar/C4I equipment. Aside from Cellbrite, companies like Ceragon, Alvarion, Radwin, ECI, Telrad, Elbit. Second hand knowledge: Within international organizations that have worked extensively in the Israel-…
> Relative to the size of its population, Israel has a highly developed electronics engineering related industry. Part of it related to their state support of domestic defense contractors ... It's not due only to Israeli resources. Much of Israel's defense budget comes from the U.S., plus there is much more support, including technology transfer, that isn't provided in cash.