How Can the Government and Police Hack Into Locked iPhones?

There’s no question that the iPhone is one of the most (if not the most) secure smartphones worldwide, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be hacked.

Unfortunately, there are a few ways someone can hack into your iPhone and get your data. The bad news is that many law enforcement agencies and police departments have gotten their hands on these methods so they can retrieve information from basically anyone.

A prime example is the infamous GrayKey device, a small machine capable of cracking the passcode on your iPhone and retrieving all types of information.

For the most part, GrayKey has been a bit of a controversial mystery, but recently we’ve found more information about how it works.

Here’s what you need to know.

What’s GrayKey?

GrayKey is a hacking device developed by Grayshift, a company based in Atlanta that aims to help the government and police.

As Grayshift puts it, GrayKey is “a state-of-the-art forensic access tool that extracts encrypted or inaccessible data from mobile devices.”

What makes GrayKey so popular is that it actually is one of the best tools to hack into iPhones and Apple devices. So much so that it’s been reported to be used by police departments on several occasions.

If you believe this makes Android devices more secure, think again. Earlier this year, Grayshift announced that GrayKey would also work with “leading Android mobile devices,” like the Samsung Galaxy S20 and the Samsung Galaxy S9, although we wouldn’t call the latter a leading Android device anymore.

How Does GrayKey Work?

Until recently, we didn’t have many details on how the police can use GrayKey to hack into locked iPhones. Grayshift had done a pretty good job keeping the process to itself. But a recently leaked document showcases how GrayKey can use a brute force method to access any iPhone.

These documents were allegedly written by the San Diego Police Department.

According to these documents, once you plug GrayKey into an iPhone, it’ll detect the alphanumeric passcode and try to install an agent that will use a text file with over 63 million passwords until it finds the passcode to…