The secret FBI hacking tool used to unlock the iPhone 5c linked to the San Bernardino December 2015 shooting is most likely limited to iPhones before the iPhone 5s, judging from recent comments from FBI Director James Comey.
"This doesn't work on 6S, doesn't work on a 5S, and so we have a tool that works on a narrow slice of phones,” Comey publicly said to a group of students at Kenyon College, according to AppleInsider . This suggests the hacking tool took advantage of the iPhone 5c’s lack of Secure Enclave, a feature only implemented with the iPhone 5s.
The Secure Enclave negates a method of hacking into an iPhone that uses a machine to guess PIN numbers, while getting around the attempt limit by manipulating the power feeding the iPhone’s logic board. Supposedly, Apple had fixed this flaw in earlier iPhone models with iOS 8, but it seems the FBI has figured out a way around that.
"The people we bought this from, I know a fair amount about them, and I have a high degree of confidence that they are very good at protecting it, and their motivations align with ours," Comey said according to CNN Money . “We tell Apple, then they're going to fix it, then we're back where we started from. We may end up there, we just haven't decided yet."
FBI General Counsel James Baker declined to specify if any useful information was obtained from the cracked iPhone 5c, saying it was “simply too early” to tell.
