Governments throughout the world have been invading your privacy and secretly gathering your
personal data for as long as they’ve been able to - from PRISM in the United States to Tempora in
the UK. Companies like Cellebrite and GrayKey develop devices used by government agencies
that can easily and quickly break into a locked phone and gather all of its data - even encrypted
data - in just a few minutes. But the core issue with the existence of these technologies
is that they aren’t just used by police departments and government agencies to fight
crime. Anyone can get their hands on one of these hacking devices given the resources and contacts,
from criminals looking to blackmail you to schools looking to invade the privacy and personal lives
of their students. But luckily, there are ways you can protect your data on your iPhone from hacking,
even with the existence of these tools. When one plugs an iPhone into one of these devices,
theres two ways they can retrieve data from it. Neither cracks encryption, rather they bypass it.
The first method for data extraction, and the quickest and easiest to use, is called “After
First Unlock” extraction. You see, after you first unlock your device after powering it on,
it stores encryption keys in the memory of your device for quick decryption of your data.
You’ll know you’re in this mode if, when you get a phone call, it shows the caller’s name from your
contacts, not just their phone number. This is because the encryption key for your address book
is available in the memory of your device. When your device is in this mode, data can
easily be extracted by a hacking device simply by plugging in the device and waiting a few minutes.
However, the other method for data extraction presents a few challenges. This method involves
extracting data while your device is in a state called “Before First Unlock”. When
your device is in Before First Unlock mode, encryption keys are much harder to access.
In fact, the most common way to extract data from an iPhone in Before First Unlock mode is
simply by brute force guessing the password - essentially typing in every possible passcode
until it gets it right. But while it may only take an hour to guess a short and simple passcode,
it can take decades to guess a more complex passcode. A standard 4 digit passcode is easy
to break, you take a 6 digit passcode and its 100 times harder to break than a 4 digit passcode,
now take a 10 digit passcode. This is 1 million times harder to break than a 4 digit passcode.
So the first thing to do to secure your data, of course is to set a more secure passcode. But
what about After First Unlock hacking? Well, to change your device into Before First Unlock mode,
you can just shut it off and turn it back on. Now that you’re in Before First Unlock mode,
what can you do to make it harder to brute force guess your passcode, other than choosing a longer
passcode? Well you can disable USB devices from connecting to your iPhone when it’s locked. For
this, simply go to your settings page, open up your security settings, and toggle off,
“Access to USB Accessories When Locked”. However, there’s two key flaws with this.
With devices including the iPhone X and below, there is an unpatchable flaw that can be exploited
using the CheckM8 vulnerability. This exploit can run on the BootROM, which is some of the first
code run by a device after power-up, and this code is read-only, meaning it can’t be fixed,
which makes it much easier to break into a locked device. So what can you do to protect your device,
given the existence of this exploit? Well, the main thing is, keep your iPhone software
up to date. Apple frequency breaks the methods of using this exploit, so it has to keep being
modified. By keeping your iPhone up to date, it makes it harder to exploit this vulnerability,
and others, on your device. For a quick recap on how to keep your iPhone secure,
set a longer passcode, toggle off, “Access to USB Accessories When Locked,” and keep your iPhone
software up-to-date. I hope you learned something from this video, if you found it interesting,
be sure to leave a like and subscribe for more, and I hope to see you in the next video. Bye!