Security News > 2021 > April > Report: Aussie biz Azimuth cracked San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, ending Apple-FBI privacy standoff

Australian security firm Azimuth has been identified as the experts who managed to crack a mass shooter's iPhone that was at the center of an encryption standoff between the FBI and Apple.

Until this week it had largely been assumed that Israeli outfit Cellebrite was hired to forcibly unlock an encrypted iPhone 5C used by Syed Farook - who in 2015 shot and killed colleagues at a work event in San Bernardino, California, claiming inspiration from ISIS. Efforts by law enforcement to unlock and pore over Farook's phone were unsuccessful, leading to the FBI taking Apple to court to force it to crack its own software to reveal the device's contents.

The Feds got an order from a judge instructing Apple to effectively break its own security to give agents access to the locked and encrypted handset.

According to the Washington Post today, Apple has been working desperately hard since then to find out who exactly managed to crack its operating system's defenses, including suing companies it thinks were involved in order to pull out information.

Apple reportedly tried to hire Wang, and when he said no, it tried to buy Corellium; an approach that was also turned down.

The entry point into the phone, which due to a feature in iOS may have deleted its contents if the wrong unlock code was entered multiple times, was apparently via some vulnerable code written by Mozilla that Apple used to handle accessories plugged into its Lightning port.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/04/14/azimuth_fbi_iphone/