Russian Team Cracks iOS 4’s Encryption

One of the features that was introduced with the iPhone 3GS was its hardware encryption which was later improved upon with the introduction of the iOS 4. What the upgrade to iOS did was it lets people assign a passcode for the hardware encryption keys, making it even more difficult for an attacker to see data.

However it looks like thanks to a group of forensic experts, ElcomSoft, they have managed to crack both the hardware and software backup encryption for iOS devices. This was done with the use of their own invention, known as the Phone Password Breaker which is GPU-accelerated and can decipher not only iOS but also Blackberry’s backups. The only catch is that the actual device is required in order to access the encrypted files as the encryption keys are kept in the hardware.

RIM has been known for their encryption for their Blackberry devices, which is why until recently, Blackberry phones have been the choice for enterprise users to send potentially sensitive e-mails from their devices. It’s been a while since the iOS 4 has been out, I guess it’s a good sign that it took them a year before finally managing to crack it.