Ride the Lightning

Two Companies Claim They Are Able to Unlock the iPhone X

March 20, 2018

Forensics Magazine recently reported that leading mobile forensics firm Cellebrite and a lesser-known company called Grayshift are offering to unlock iPhones running the latest iOS, all the way up to the iPhone X. Forbes earlier reported that Cellebrite could unlock iPhones running up to iOS 11.2.6, the latest version, and that Cellebrite's price for unlocking iPhones was about $1,500.

Then Grayshift appeared as a competitor, publicly offering its online service GrayKey for $15,000 for 300 uses—just $50 per device. And, according to Forbes, Grayshift also offers an offline version of GrayKey for $30,000 with unlimited uses. Grayshift claims that it can unlock the latest iPhone models up to the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, running iOS 10 or 11.

Why is it so hard to unlock the iPhone? Security features, such as the device locking for longer periods of time after multiple failed passcode attempts, and even an optional feature that wipes the iPhone's data after 10 failed attempts, make typical "brute force" methods of trying every possible passcode option both impractical and risky for investigators.

Apple is of course going to focus on understanding how the unlocking is done to remediate a vulnerability, which might put Cellebrite and Grayshift back to square one – until they find another vulnerability.

Hat tip to Dave Ries.

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