Apple moved one step ahead of the cracking machines with iOS 13

It should be pointed out that unlike the events that transpired in 2016, this time Apple has not been ordered by a court to unlock the phones. However, there is a chance that Barr will obtain a court order compelling Apple to open the handsets. When asked whether he plans on doing so, the Attorney General refused to comment.

Perhaps the most important thing that we can take away from the current situation is that companies like Cellebrite and Grayshift apparently are unable to unlock iPhone models running iOS 13 or else Mr. Barr would not have been complaining to the press today about Apple’s lack of assistance. Cracking machines use brute force attacks to unlock iPhone models. Plugged into an iPhone’s Lightning port, these devices seek to bypass limits on passcode attempts and then try every possible passcode combination until it hits the right one. Apple thought that it had closed this vulnerability with the USB Restricted Mode added in iOS 12. This feature prevented the Lightning port from communicating with other devices if an iPhone not been unlocked within the previous hour. But shortly afterward, Cellebrite’s web site was bragging that the company could crack any iOS device from iOS 7 to iOS 12.3. Apple might have moved one step ahead in iOS 13.

It will be interesting to see what happens if Apple continues to defy the FBI. Attorney General Barr is known to be extremely close with President Donald Trump and Trump seems to consider Apple CEO Tim Cook to be someone reasonable he can talk to. We can imagine a scenario in which Barr tells Trump that the iPhones in question need to be opened for the security of the country. Trump calls Cook who explains why it can’t be done from Apple’s perspective. Back in 2016, when Apple defied the court order demanding that it open Farook’s phone, then candidate Trump said that he was boycotting Apple and would start to use Samsung phones. He also said at the time, “It’s ridiculous that the government has to be put in a position where if they have information about a possible attack, we waste a second because that could be the second that kills somebody.” Now, with the full weight of the Office of the President behind his statements, who knows what Trump would do to Apple if pressured by Barr.