Although various rumors appeared in recent weeks suggested that The FBI allegedly paid an Israeli company called Cellebrite to hack an iPhone used by a terrorist before an armed attack from the US, in reality it seems that the federal agency paid professional hackers to get the data from the smartphone.
Among these hackers is one who regularly sells operating system vulnerabilities to government agencies or various other companies specializing in forensics, and many are now questioning the choice of those from FBI to get the data.
These hackers used an old iOS vulnerability to create a special component that was then used to crack the security code of that iPhone, its discovery then allowing the problem-free access to all the data stored in the device.
According to an American publication, the method used by the FBI to access data from the iPhone would be similar to the one requested from the Apple company, but the refusal of those in Cupertino to offer help forced the government agency to choose alternative options.
The new information was then used to create a piece of hardware that helped the FBI to crack the iPhone's four-digit personal identification number without triggering a security feature that would have erased all the data, the individuals said. The researchers, who typically keep a low profile, specialize in hunting for vulnerabilities in software and then in some cases selling them to the US government. They were paid a one-time flat fee for the solution.
Considering that the FBI used a team of professional hackers to break into that iPhone, for now it is not known what role the Cellebrite company has in accessing data from iDevices, and its determination will be important considering that Apple still collaborates with this company.
