Apple: FBI Will Not Be Able to Hack Apple Devices for Long

After recent tensions between Apple and the FBI regarding hacking of devices, U.S. authorities might not be able to break into them anymore.
Apple: FBI Will Not Be Able to Hack Apple Devices for Long
The crest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images); File photo, Apple CEO Tim Cook. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
4/4/2016
Updated:
4/4/2016

After recent tensions between Apple and the FBI regarding hacking of devices, U.S. authorities might not be able to break into them anymore.

Experts say the FBI’s way of breaking into apple devices will soon be blocked.

According to Yahoo, they said once Apple fixes the security flaw, U.S. authorities won’t be able to hack into the devices.

When the company’s engineers pinpoint the security gap that allowed the FBI to break into the phone, the tech firm will be able to fix the encryption hole, its engineers told Yahoo.

This comes after Apple refused to help authorities unlock an iPhone that belonged to San Bernardino shooter, Syed Rizwan Farook.

The agency and the Cupertino-based company were in a legal dispute over the matter, until U.S. authorities said they did not need Apple’s help to unlock it.

The feds eventually found a third party to hack into the phone.

It is believed that Israeli mobile forensics firm, Cellebrite, supposedly helped U.S. authorities hack the phone of one of the San Bernardino shooters.

Although the FBI said they were able to crack into the phone, they did not say how.

A senior law enforcement official, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said that authorities were able to defeat an Apple security feature that threatened to delete the contents in the phone if the FBI failed to enter the correct passcode combination after 10 guesses.

That allowed officials to repeatedly and continuously test passcodes, known as a brute-force attack, until the right code was entered.

It is still unknown how authorities dealt with a related Apple security feature that increases time delays between tries.

CEO Tim Cook said after the hack in a statement that the company is constantly trying to improve security for its users.

The FBI has also since agreed to help unlock an iPhone and iPod in an Arkansas murder case.