Dubbed USB Restricted Mode, the characteristic automatically disables information connective capabilities of the Lightning port on your iPhone or iPad if the device has been locked for an lx minutes or longer, spell the port tin yet hold upwards used for device charging.
In other words, every fourth dimension y'all lock your iPhone, a countdown timer of an lx minutes gets activated inward the background, which if completed, enables the USB restricted means to preclude unauthorized access to the information port.
Once the USB Restricted Mode gets activated, there's no means left for breaking into an iPhone or iPad without the user's permission.
The characteristic would, no doubt, defeat law enforcement's utilization of exceptional unlocking hardware made past times Cellebrite together with Grayshift from attempting multiple passcode guesses via the iPhone's Lightning port.
Defeating Apple's New "USB Restricted Mode" Security Feature
However, safety researchers from ElcomSoft cause got found a uncomplicated means that could allow anyone to reset the countdown timer of USB Restricted Mode to effectively defeat the role of the novel safety feature.
According to the researchers, past times direct connecting a USB accessory—such every bit Apple's $39 Lightning to USB three Camera adapter—to a targeted iOS device inside an lx minutes subsequently it was in conclusion unlocked would reset the 1-hour countdown.
Activation of USB Restricted Mode tin also hold upwards prevented fifty-fifty past times using untrusted Lightning accessories, or those that cause got non been paired amongst the iPhone before.
"In other words, ane time the constabulary officeholder seizes an iPhone, he or she would need to directly connect that iPhone to a compatible USB accessory to preclude USB Restricted Mode lock subsequently ane hour," Afonin explains.
"Importantly, this alone helps if the iPhone has yet non entered USB Restricted Mode."ElcomSoft researchers are also experimenting amongst unofficial together with inexpensive Lightning to USB adapters to run into whether they, too, tin extend the one-hour fourth dimension limit.
The number doesn't seem to hold upwards a severe vulnerability together with looks similar merely a error on Apple's part—"probably zero to a greater extent than than an oversight," together with nosotros promise that Apple would land it shortly.
In example y'all experience the need to directly activate this USB Restricted Mode characteristic on their iOS devices earlier the countdown timer ends, merely press the Power push 5 times.
