FBI paid hackers more than $ 1.3 million for hacking iPhone

FBI Director James Koumi said yesterday that his department paid hackers for breaking into the iPhone a San Bernardino shooter " more than he earned in the remaining seven years before retirement ."

According to the statements of the US Department of Management and Budget, as of January 2015, the official Koumi salary was $ 183 thousand per year. If Koumi made the correct calculation, he will receive $ 1.34 million for the remaining seven years and four months before retirement.

This means that the hackers received the largest fee ever paid for FBI assistance. In no hacker contest or vulnerability reward program, hackers could not earn such a prize for hacking an iPhone or any other device or program. Until now, the biggest reward was $ 1 million paid to the American company Zerodium.

Asked by the moderator at the Aspen Security Forum security forum in London, the FBI director admitted that the amount paid was very large, but "it was worth it," in his opinion.

Although in this particular case, nothing important was found , but the FBI now has software for self-hacking other iPhone 5C phones on the iOS 9 operating system.

Only in the US there are 16 million iPhone 5C phones in circulation, of which 84% work under iOS 9.

Earlier, a source from the special services saidthat the smartphone was hacked by professional hackers and used at least one unknown vulnerability in iOS 9. The vulnerabilities helped the FBI successfully use a special device to find the four-digit iOS unlock code. It took 26 minutes for the specialists to select the unlock code; for this operation, the NAND Mirroring flash memory mirroring method was not used. It was possible to successfully circumvent both protection functions: the mechanism for destroying data on the device after ten incorrect input attempts and the increasing delay time between sets of the unlock code.