FBI Paid Professional Hackers One-Time Fee To Crack San Bernardino iPhone

There's another new wrinkle in the never-ending FBI vs Apple saga. The Washington Post is claiming that FBI did not require Cellebrite's assistance in hacking San Bernardino iPhone. Instead, the report claims, the government intelligence organization bought a previously unknown security bug from a group of professional hackers. According to the report, the hacker group provided FBI with at least one zero-day flaw in the iPhone 5c's security, which enabled FBI to circumvent the lockscreen and other security features. The bug hasn't been disclosed. FBI has previously noted that the technique it utilized in breaking into the iPhone 5c does not work with any new iPhone models (iPhone 5s or newer).

Comments

Re:And Vindicated....

[Anonymous Coward]

i was telling people that the FBI was lying and Cellbright did not sell them anything to do this...

Remember kids, DO NOT TRUST law enforcement. they are not there for your protection.

Neither are the software providers. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. are not there for your protection.

TRUST NO ONE.

Re:Evidence

[ChrisMaple]

The story is that the FBI was looking for a contact list: people or organizations to be considered for further investigation. If such a list contained Joe's Pizza, Al's Garage, and 9 people named Mohammed, some of that list is likely to be terrorist related.

It's a question of looking for likely suspects, and being on the list is by itself not evidence of guilt.