FBI Now Helping Local Law Enforcement to Unlock iPhones in Criminal Cases

The FBI will now assist local enforcement agencies to unlock iPhones in criminal cases after successfully breaching one used by a San Bernardino shooter.

"As has been our longstanding policy, the FBI will of course consider any tool that might be helpful to our partners. Please know that we will continue to do everything we can to help you consistent with our legal and policy constraints," according to FBI's letter obtained by BuzzFeed.

The FBI told local law enforcement that suspected criminals "going dark" pose a huge challenge. "Going dark" is a metaphor that the FBI uses for its inability to read messages and tap communications, CNET wrote.

FBI's letter comes after it formally dropped its legal action against Apple for refusing to write software, which, according to CEO Tim Cook, would "undeniably create a backdoor" for the latest iPhones and iPads, the news outlet noted. However, the government found an "outside party" (suspected to be Israeli company Cellebrite) which bypassed the unknown passcode of the deceased shooter.

After a few days, the FBI helped an Arkansas prosecutor unlock an iPhone using the method they did to the shooter's device, CNET added. However, the FBI didn't divulge the unlocking process. It is also unknown whether the administration will disclose the information to Apple as part of its responsible security vulnerability disclosure policies.

FBI's Method Not Staying Secret for Long

Senior Apple engineers and outside experts think that FBI's trick for unlocking an iPhone will not stay secret for long.

There are lots of state and local authorities requesting for FBI's assistance with locked phones in criminal cases, so there's a possibility that the FBI will be forced to reveal their trick, Reuters reported. Defense attorneys will then cross-examine the experts involved in the issue, and determine whether evidence-tampering happened.

This process could unveil the method, and Apple would work on blocking it in future versions of its iPhones, an employee in the company said.

"The FBI would need to resign itself to the fact that such an exploit would only be viable for a few months, if released to other departments," said Jonathan Zdziarski, an independent forensics expert who assisted police to unlock numerous devices, as quoted by Reuters. "It would be a temporary Vegas jackpot that would quickly get squandered on the case backlog."

Also, the contractor who provided the tool to FBI might sell it to other agencies or countries, the news outlet added.

The FBI revealed it would share the unlocking method as long as it's "consistent with our legal and policy constraints," according to a memo to police acquired by Reuters on Friday.