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by John W. Simek, Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

One Step Forward – Two Steps Back

September 26, 2016

When is an upgrade not really an upgrade? Apparently, if you upgrade to iOS 10 your local iTunes backups are a lot easier to crack. ElcomSoft, which makes software to gain access to password protected devices, claims upgrading to iOS 10 takes a step backwards with the security of ITunes backups.

"When working on an iOS 10 update for Elcomsoft Phone Breaker, we discovered an alternative password verification mechanism added to iOS 10 backups. We looked into it, and found out that the new mechanism skips certain security checks, allowing us to try passwords approximately 2500 times faster compared to the old mechanism used in iOS 9 and older."

Hmmm. Not a very comforting statement. Another reason to use a VERY strong (and really long) password when protecting the data.

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Digital Forensics/Information Security/Information Technology
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