Grayshift

Grayshift is an American mobile device forensics company which makes a device named GrayKey to crack iPhones.

GrayShift was co-founded by David Miles, Braden Thomas, Justin Fisher and Sean Larrson.[1] The company is funded by private investors PeakEquity Partners and C&B Capital.[2][3]

GrayKey

The GrayKey product has been used by the FBI and U.S., British and Canadian local police forces.[4][5][6][7][8][9] Canadian police forces require Judicial authorization (court order or warrant) per mobile phone to use GrayKey. GrayKey is estimated to be used in up to 150 countries.

According to media reports GrayKey costs 15,000 USD to 30,000 USD per copy depending on the functional options chosen.[10] The number of users of GrayKey ranges from 7,000 to 10,000 depending on media reports published at approximately the same time. The device is a gray box 4 inches by 4 inches by 2 inches in size with two lightning cables.[11] Time to solve an iPhone's passcode can be a few minutes to several hours depending on the length of the passcode. This leads to the conclusion that GrayKey is performing a Brute-force attack to perform the solve after disabling the passcode attempt limit.

The GrayKey product has limited functionality with iPhones running iOS 12 and later.[12] Apple modified iOS so that external device connections must be authorized by the iPhone owner after it has been unlocked.[13] On newer iPhone models only unencrypted files and some metadata might be extracted. With earlier models full data extraction, such as decrypting encrypted files, is possible.

In 2018 hackers obtained the GrayKey source code and attempted to extort a payment of 2 bitcoins from GrayShift after leaking "small chunks of code".[14][15]

An Android version is in development.[16]

References
  1. "Leadership". Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  2. "Investors and Advisors". Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  3. "Grayshift, The Startup That Breaks Into iPhones For The Feds, Raises $47 Million". 2020-10-26. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  4. Miller, Chance (2020-01-16). "Report: The FBI recently unlocked an iPhone 11 Pro with GrayKey, raising more doubts about the Pensacola case". 9to5Mac. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
  5. Fox-Brewster, Thomas (March 5, 2018). "Mysterious $15,000 'GrayKey' Promises To Unlock iPhone X For The Feds". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
  6. Burgess, Matt (2018-10-19). "UK police are buying top secret hacking tech to break into iPhones". Wired UK. ISSN 1357-0978. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
  7. Cox, Joseph (2018-04-12). "Cops Around the Country Can Now Unlock iPhones, Records Show". Vice.com. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
  8. "Waterloo Regional Police have a device that can crack locked phones". 2021-01-03. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  9. "More questions than answers as Guelph Police confirm ownership of controversial forensic tool". 2020-12-02. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  10. "The Police Can Probably Break Into Your Phone". 2020-10-21. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  11. "GrayKey iPhone unlocker poses serious security concerns". 2018-03-14. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  12. "Apple Just Killed The 'GrayKey' iPhone Passcode Hack". 2018-10-24. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  13. "USB Restricted Mode in iOS 13: Apple vs. GrayKey, Round Two". 2019-09-27. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  14. "Look, a GrayKey interface on the internet!". 2018-05-25. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  15. "Hackers Leaked The Code Of iPhone Cracking Device "GrayKey", Attempted Extortion". 2018-05-24. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  16. "Leaked: The Feds' Favorite iPhone Hackers Plan To Crack Android". 2020-10-26. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
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