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State Department Seemingly Buys $15,000 iPhone Cracking Tech GrayKey (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Grayshift, a company that offers to unlock modern iPhones for as little as $50 each, has caused a buzz across law enforcement agencies, with local police already putting down cash for the much sought-after tech. Now, it appears a section of the U.S. State Department has also purchased the iPhone cracking tool, judging by procurement records reviewed by Motherboard. Grayshift's iPhone product, dubbed GrayKey, can unlock devices running versions of Apple's latest mobile operating system iOS 11, according to marketing material obtained by Forbes. An online version of GrayKey which allows 300 unlocks costs $15,000 (which boils down to $50 per device), and an offline capability with unlimited uses is $30,000. According to a recent post from cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, which obtained leaked details on GrayKey, the product itself is a small, four inch by four inch box, and two iPhones can be connected at once via lightning cables. Malwarebytes adds that the time it takes to unlock a device varies depending on the strength of the user's passcode: it may be hours or days. Notably, Grayshift includes an ex-Apple engineer on its staff, Forbes reported.
On March 6, the State Department ordered an item from Grayshift for just over $15,000, according to a purchase order listing available on the U.S. government's public federal procurement data system. The listing is sparse on details, putting the order under the generic label of "computer and computer peripheral equipment." But Motherboard confirmed that the Grayshift in the State Department listing is the same as the one selling iPhone cracking tech: the phone number of the vendor in both the purchase order and documents Motherboard previously obtained detailing a GrayKey purchase by Indiana State Police is the same. The "funding office" for the Grayshift purchase was the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, according to the procurement records. The Bureau acts as the law enforcement and security arm of the State Department, bearing "the core responsibility for providing a safe environment for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy," the State Department website reads.
On March 6, the State Department ordered an item from Grayshift for just over $15,000, according to a purchase order listing available on the U.S. government's public federal procurement data system. The listing is sparse on details, putting the order under the generic label of "computer and computer peripheral equipment." But Motherboard confirmed that the Grayshift in the State Department listing is the same as the one selling iPhone cracking tech: the phone number of the vendor in both the purchase order and documents Motherboard previously obtained detailing a GrayKey purchase by Indiana State Police is the same. The "funding office" for the Grayshift purchase was the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, according to the procurement records. The Bureau acts as the law enforcement and security arm of the State Department, bearing "the core responsibility for providing a safe environment for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy," the State Department website reads.
Its obvious that they must have found an exploit that allows them to bypass the number-of-attempts security mechanism. I wonder if this is handled in IOS or if it is a more serious Security Enclave bug.
I've known people who've spent 10 to 15 minutes dealing with the security checkpoints simply because they had their device set to fingerprint unlock, even though they didn't have anything in particular on the phone that security would have been interested in.
That's why, about 30 minutes or so before I'm going through a security checkpoint where my belongings may be searched, I will unlock my phone so that it does not require any kind of password to turn on and navigate the home screen and applications. When they've asked to see the phone, I've simply handed it to them, they turned it on, saw that they had access to everything, and immediately handed it back without even trying to find anything or asking me any questions.
It seems that simply having a device that is locked at all gives them enough reason to want to search it, while having a device that is not leaves them giving the device back right away with no questions asked.
This also has the advantage that I will not be put in the position of even being asked for my password at all. Even though I may not legally have to tell them my passwords, I think that not cooperating with them, or even creating the appearance that I don't want to cooperate with them has some non-zero potential of making my life a whole lot more complicated than it needs to be, so unlocking the device beforehand so that it requires no such passcode avoids the matter entirely.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'