FBI, unlocked iPhone without Apple's help. Still mystery about the technique used

During the day yesterday the US Department of Justice has announced that it withdrew the lawsuit in which Apple has requested assistance circumvent security measures of the iPhone 5C Syed Farook properties, author of the San Bernardino shootout last December 5, claiming to be able to gain access to device data.

Having a technical measure able to circumvent the security of the Apple phone, the authorities no longer need Apple will aid 'to leverage on the All Wrist Act to compel Apple to provide assistance. "The government has had access to information stored on the iPhone for Farook and therefore does not need the assistance requested to Apple last February 16, 2016" have informed the authorities in a statement.

Melanie Newman, spokesman for the Justice Department, said: "It remains the government's priority to ensure that the authorities can obtain basic digital information at the national and public safety, protection of safety, both in collaboration with relevant parties or by the court system when not you can find a collaboration. We will continue to follow all the options available for this purpose, including research of the collaboration of producers or creaività the public and private sectors ".

The authorities have not yet determined whether to share with the Apple of the vulnerability details, and it is unclear whether the Cupertino company has in some way right to be able to be in possession of this information.

Apple, meanwhile, has issued an official statement on the matter: "From the beginning we have opposed the FBI's request to create a secondary access to the iPhone because we believed it was wrong and it would set a dangerous precedent. With the authorities' actions , this has not happened. This case would not even have taken place. we will continue to assist the authorities with their inquiries, as we always have, and will continue to improve the safety of our products before the threats and attacks on our information that becomes increasingly frequent and sophisticated. Apple strongly believes that people in the US and around the world deserve the protection, security and privacy of information. to sacrifice one for the other exposes people and countries at a greater risk. This case raised problems that require a national dialogue on our civil liberties and our collective security and privacy. Apple remains committed to participate in this debate. "

Currently there is no information on the methods used by the authorities to be able to access the information in the iPhone 5C Farook. In recent weeks, has circulated the news that the FBI would get the help of an Israeli company, Cellebrite, and that a possible way to break the iPhone's security could be the "NAND Mirroring" called technique that provides for the copy the contents of the NAND memory of the phone on an image file to operate and copy the contents deciphered on the chip, as explained by the forensic specialist Jonathan Zdziarski on his blog.