Last month, we saw an incredible confrontation between the FBI Justice Ministry and Apple. The apple of the dispute was the iPhone of the San Bernardino terrorist, which Apple refused to unlock for the FBI.
The public outcry and harsh rhetoric from the Ministry of Justice ended when the FBI announced that an Israeli security company would "break" the terrorist's cell phone, withdrawing the lawsuit.
For those who do not know, there are many zero-day exploits companies, and usually their best customers, are government security agencies.
It is widely known by now Edward Snowden that the government uses zero-day flaws and does not announce it because if he simply reports it to the software manufacturers the security gap will be closed immediately.
Are you still wondering?
So ACLU's Christopher Soghoia tweet probably answers the title question: "the government does not reveal security loopholes in companies like Apple" if they prove useful to law enforcement.
[tweet_embed id = 712067889071837184]Law enforcement authorities want to use these defects for surveillance and technology companies that want to fix them immediately to protect their users from hackers. Meanwhile, secret services are sitting right in the middle. The NSA has once again said that it reveals the overwhelming majority of zero-day but does not do it before they first use it.
Will the FBI reveal the flaw when it is used? "Amazing", said Soghoian.
Many believe that a external team security could help the FBI crack the phone by mirroring the NAND memory, so the device won't be erased no matter how many times password combinations are used, by brute force attacks.
Whatever the flaw that will actually be exploited, there is no difference from the government's mandate to Apple to rewrite its software to bypass iPhone security features. In this way the FBI could use brute force attacks to open the phone.
In any case, think of it as a backdoor that Apple and other tech companies would like to fix as soon as any other vulnerability.
Of course, the above assumptions may prove totally untrue if the FBI plans to deliver the exploit immediately after unlocking the device.
No matter what the US government has, it will have to file a report on the court situation as early as April 5 and we will learn more.
