What can and what cannot be done with an iOS device using Touch ID/Face ID authentication as opposed to knowing the passcode? The differences are huge. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll only cover iOS 12 and 13. If you just want a quick summary, scroll down to the end of the article for a table.

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 loved what Apple used to do about security. During the past years, the company managed to build a complete, multi-layer system to secure its hardware and software ecosystem and protect its customers against common threats. Granted, the system was not without its flaws (most notably, the obligatory use of a trusted phone number – think SS7 vulnerability – for the purpose of two-factor authentication), but overall it was still the most secure mobile ecosystem on the market.

So you’ve got an iPhone, and it’s locked, and you don’t know the passcode. This situation is so common, and the market has so many solutions and “solutions” that we felt a short walkthrough is necessary.

With hardware-backed full-disk encryption and additional protection of sensitive user data located in the keychain, Apple iOS is the most secure mobile operating system out there. Acquisition approaches that are traditional for Android and Windows Phone devices (namely, JTAG, ISP and chip-off) are completely meaningless for iOS devices running even years-old generations of the system. Bypassing screen lock password (passcode) has also been long considered to be useless due to the fact user data stored in the keychain is additionally encrypted with a secure key based on the passcode.

Few days ago we have updated our iOS Forensic Toolkit to version 1.15 which includes some bugfixes and improvements and, most notably, supports passcode recovery on the new iPad (also known as iPad 3). There are no significant changes from the practical point of view (i.e. the process of passcode recovery is still exactly the same), but there is something new under the hood. So if you’re interested in iOS security and how stuff works, please read on.

Today, we released an updated version of iOS Forensic Toolkit. It’s not as much of an update to make big news shout, but the number of improvements here and there warrants a blog post, and is definitely worth upgrading to if you’re dealing with multiple iPhones on a daily basis.

SANS Information Security Reading Room has recently publicized a whitepaper about iOS security where they mentioned our software – Elcomsoft iOS Forensic Toolkit – in a section about encryption. Kiel Thomas, the author of the whitepaper, explained one more time the main principles of iOS 4 encryption, which became stronger in comparison with iOS 3.x and how our toolkit can bypass new strong algorithms.