Police have been using GrayKey’s Hacking tool to unlock the iPhones of criminals. GrayKey uses an undisclosed technique to sidestep Apples’ standard disk encryption. The Federal agencies of more than five states are using the device to unlock iPhones.
A new Reuters report explained that Apple is currently planning to introduce an update to the operating system that will prevent agencies from unlocking the device. USB interaction will be restricted to ensure that it can only charge the device after an hour of being unlocked, the result will give police a small window of time to deploy GrayKey devices successfully.
The new feature will be known as “USB Restricted Mode” which is currently in beta for both iOS 12 and iOS 11.4.1. Apple declined to comment on the USB restricted mode.
A report from Malwarebytes showed that GrayKey installs low-level software using the iPhones Lightning port when the device is plugged in briefly. The target iPhone will run the GrayKey Software and the device will display the passcode of the iPhone after two to three days.
“We’re constantly strengthening the security protections in every Apple product to help customers defend against hackers, identity thieves, and intrusions into their personal data,” an Apple representative said in a statement. “We have the greatest respect for law enforcement, and we don’t design our security improvements to frustrate their efforts to do their jobs.”
This is a big issue regarding privacy of customers and the data leaked may be politically sensitive. Apple is not responding to any comment currently, the company is rapidly trying to push an update to the iPhone to fix the security flaw in the device.