TECHNICALLY SPEAKING: FOOTPRINTS IN THE DATA
THE CASE OF THE GRAY KEY In March 2018, an anonymous source alerted the cybersecurity community to the existence of a gray box, four inches square, that could unlock any iPhone and extract every piece of data from it. Plug an iPhone into the “GrayKey,” and anywhere from a few hours later (if the phone is protected by a four-digit passcode) to three days (for a six-digit passcode), the passcode surfaces and the device down- loads all the phone’s data for investigators to analyze.
Te device’s maker, a small Atlanta-based company called Grayshift, did not say by what means its device evaded the security features on the phone, which usually erase the phone’s data after 10 failed attempts to enter the passcode. Outside security experts said it’s “almost certainly” the case that Grayshift found a weak spot in the iPhone’s software that lets the GrayKey guess hundreds of passcodes per minute.
By October 2018, Apple had apparently found and fixed the weak spot, and GrayKey devices could no longer break into newer iPhones. (Tey could still
do a “partial extraction” on some older iPhones.)
“Mobile forensics is really taking over the majority of the forensic work we’re doing, and it’s also one of the largest challenges to overcome security-wise,” Eller said. “It’s a constant challenge for the companies that make the hardware and software we use to search—it’s a cat-and-mouse game” between the forensic software companies and Apple and makers of Android devices.
That game focuses on the security measures that prevent anyone other than a phone’s owner from unlocking it. Tou- sands of devices are in law enforcement custody, locked and unsearchable, because tech companies so far have declined to provide software to override the pass- code or fingerprint security, or to leave a “back door” in their products through which digital investigators could get access to the phone’s data. Te tech companies argue that this would weaken security for all users.
Even so, as GrayKey showed, smart- phones aren’t impervious to the powers
of cash and the smarts of computer engi- neers. Tere’s a market for phone-cracking hardware and software, and U.S. law enforcement and government agencies are among the customers paying forensic firms anywhere from $5,000 to $30,000 to break into passcode-protected devices.
After the 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, California, that killed 14 and left the shooter dead, the FBI wanted access to the shooter’s iPhone. It asked Apple to create a version of the iPhone’s operating system without the “auto-erase” security function. Apple refused, and the FBI paid an outside vendor reportedly close to $1 million to break into the phone. Te vendor was believed to be Cellebrite, an Israeli cyber- security firm.
CONCLUSION At a demonstration of the iPhone-unlock- ing GrayKey, before Apple’s security updates partially defeated it, an armed guard stood watch over the company’s booth. “It’s an arms race,” Grayshift CEO David Miles said of the struggle between security features and hackers and purvey- ors of forensic and decryption technology.
BREAKING IN
The Universal Forensic Extraction Device produced by Cellebrite, an Israeli cybersecurity firm, believed to be the firm the FBI paid to break into an iPhone belonging to the shooter in the 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, California, after Apple declined to give the FBI a way around the phone’s encryption. (Image courtesy of Flickr/Weissenbach PR)
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Army AL&T Magazine
Spring 2019
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