In a surprise turn of events the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has revealed that the method it used to gain access to the iPhone 5c belonging to one of the San Bernadino terrorists won’t work on later iPhone models.

The revelation came from FBI Director James Comey in a speech at Kenyon University where he said “It’s a bit of a technological corner case, because the world has moved on to sixes … This doesn’t work on sixes, doesn’t work on a 5s. So we have a tool that works on a narrow slice of phones.”

“I can never be completely confident, but I’m pretty confident about that.”

Comey didn’t specify why the method doesn’t work on later phones however The Verge believes it may be due to Secure Enclave protections that were first implemented in the A7 chip that debuted with the iPhone 5s; Secure Enclave is a separate CPU within the A7 and later chips that is responsible for cryptographic operations and in theory should prevent brute forcing methods being used to unlock an iPhone as it is not tied in with the phone’s operating system kernel.

Oops

The revelation follows a memo from the FBI to State and Local law enforcement agencies promising to assist them in unlocking iPhones, while neglecting to mention that the method they have in place can only be used on older phones.

Apple, along with all of its users, would still like to know exactly what method was used, and this is something Comey did address, saying that the Bureau was still considering whether to do so.

“We tell Apple, then they’re going to fix it, then we’re back where we started from,” he said. “We may end up there, we just haven’t decided yet.”

Whatever the method the news that the FBI can crack older iPhones is still deeply concerning and while it remains unaddressed and unfixed millions of iPhone users are at risk of being targeted by bad actors looking to steal personal information from iPhones, and more.

The FBI should have a moral responsibility, as a Government agency that ultimately serves the people of the United States, to protect those very same people from nefarious activities, and if they know of a flaw in earlier iPhone models they need to reveal it to Apple immediately.

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