Defeating the iPhone Restricted Mode
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Recently, Apple introduced restricted mode to protect iPhones from attacks by companies like Cellebrite and Greyshift, which allow attackers to recover information from a phone without the password or fingerprint. Elcomsoft just announced that it can easily bypass it.
There is an important lesson in this: security is hard. Apple Computer has one of the best security teams on the planet. This feature was not tossed out in a day; it was designed and implemented with a lot of thought and care. If this team could make a mistake like this, imagine how bad a security feature is when implemented by a team without this kind of expertise.
This is the reason actual cryptographers and security engineers are very skeptical when a random company announces that their product is “secure.” We know that they don’t have the requisite security expertise to design and implement security properly. We know they didn’t take the time and care. We know that their engineers think they understand security, and designed to a level that they couldn’t break.
Getting security right is hard for the best teams on the world. It’s impossible for average teams.
Tags: Apple, cell phones, cryptanalysis, cryptography, iPhone
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