5 ms·
Yeah I've got the same question. Is there some hardware safeguard that prevents copying the memory itself? You'd think the first rule of crypto forensics is t
by peeters 11y ago
Yeah I've got the same question. Is there some hardware safeguard that prevents copying the memory itself? You'd think the first rule of crypto forensics is to work on a copy.
- X-Istence 11y agoEven if there were no such safeguard, you'd still have to break AES encryption...
- greiskul 11y agoThey "just" need to break the users password. If it's a weak one, which is likely for most users, a simple dictionary attack would work.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- X-Istence 11y agoThe users password goes through a password based key derivation function, that function spits out an key that is use for the AES crypto used for the file system. Now, the PBKDF requires a secret that is only stored within the iPhone itself (within the CPU even, where it can't be read out directly). So if we instead grab a copy of the data, all we get is an AES encrypted file system. We have 2 choices. 1. We can attack AES directly, and attempt to brute force the AES key, or 2. We can attempt to get the AES key somehow by bruteforcing the users password. 2 is infinitely simpler compared to 1. However, 2 becomes more difficult (but still less so than just cracking AES itself) when you need to run your brute force guesses through the CPU within the iPhone.
- peeters 11y agoI guess that's my question...is there really no way to get the secret off of the hardware so that the function can be reproduced "offline".
- X-Istence 11y agorestating your question: Has Apple been lying to its customers for years?
- ascorbic 11y agoThis is exactly the threat model this was designed to defeat, so I would imagine not. At the very least, if there is a way to do it Apple is probably unaware. If they are aware, they'll probably open themselves to a class action suit, as its one of the core features that they advertised.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]