The most spoken thing about iOS 11.4.1 is undoubtedly USB Restricted Mode. This highly controversial feature is apparently built in response to threats created by passcode cracking solutions such as those made by Cellerbrite and Grayshift. On unmanaged devices, the new default behavior is to disable data connectivity of the Lightning connector after one hour since the device was last unlocked, or one hour since the device has been disconnected from a trusted USB accessory. In addition, users can quickly disable the USB port manually by following the S.O.S. mode routine.

Apple has an article on their official Web site, warning users against jailbreaking iOS devices. The article “Unauthorized modification of iOS can cause security vulnerabilities, instability, shortened battery life, and other issues” is available at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201954. How much truth is in that article, and is jailbreaking as dangerous as Apple claims? We’ll comment the article based on our extensive experience in jailbreaking more than a hundred devices running every version of iOS imaginable.

iPhone protection becomes tougher with each iteration. The passcode is extremely hard to break, and it’s just the first layer of defense. Even if the device is unlocked or if you know the passcode, it is not that easy and sometimes impossible to access all the data stored on the device. This includes, for example, conversations in Signal, one of the most secure messengers. Apple did a very good job as a privacy and security advocate.

We have just released an update to iOS Forensic Toolkit. This is not just a small update. EIFT 4.0 is a milestone, marking the departure from supporting a large number of obsolete devices to focusing on current iOS devices (the iPhone 5s and newer) with and without a jailbreak. Featuring straightforward acquisition workflow, iOS Forensic Toolkit can extract more information from supported devices than ever before.

Thinking Apple is done with USB Restricted Mode? Not yet. They have at least one more deus ex machina to shake up the forensic community.

iOS 11.4 has finally brought a feature Apple promised almost a year ago: the iMessage sync via iCloud. This feature made its appearance in iOS 11 beta, but was stripped from the final release. It re-appeared and disappeared several times during the iOS 11 development cycle, and has finally made it into iOS 11.4. Let’s have a look at how iMessages are protected and how to download them from iCloud.

We also trust these companies in ways that we do not understand yet. How many of you trust Apple? No voting… Just me 🙂 Damn! OK. May I ask you a very good question. Trusting to do what? Trusting when they say: “iMessages are end-to-end encrypted”? I mean, with all of that massive security engineering, to make sure it’s as good as it can be, so they genuinely believe they’ve done that. I do, generally, they’re great people. But… people believe themselves they can defend themselves against the Russians. If the Russians specifically targeted Apple, it’s only they can defend themselves. – Ian Levy, director at the GCHQ on anniversary of the foundation of the FIPR event that was held on 29/04/2018).

This publication is somewhat unusual. ElcomSoft does not need an introduction as a forensic vendor. We routinely publish information on how to break into the phone, gain access to information and extract as much evidence as theoretically possible using hacks (jailbreaks) or little known but legitimate workarounds. We teach and train forensic experts on how to extract and decrypt information, how to download information from iCloud with or without the password, how to bypass two-factor authentication and how their iPhone falls your complete victim if you know its passcode.

Finally, TAR support is there! Using Elcomsoft iOS Forensic Toolkit to pull TAR images out of jailbroken iOS devices? You’ll no longer be left on your own with the resulting TAR file! Elcomsoft Phone Viewer 3.70 can now open the TAR images obtained with Elcomsoft iOS Forensic Toolkit or GrayKey and help you analyse evidence in that file. In addition, we added an aggregated view for location data extracted from multiple sources – such as the system logs or geotags found in media files.

As we wrote back in May, Apple is toying with the idea of restricting USB access to iOS devices that have not been unlocked for a certain period of time. At the time of publication, our article received a lot of controversial reports. When this mode did not make it into the final build of iOS 11.4, we enjoyed a flow of sarcastic comments from journalists and the makers of passcode cracking toolkits. Well, there we have it: Apple is back on track with iOS 11.4.1 beta including the new, improved and user-configurable USB Restricted Mode.