Sources: FBI worked with Israel's Cellebrite to crack the iPhone in the San Bernardino shooting case
FBI Worked With Israel's Cellebrite to Crack iPhone — The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation worked with Israel's Cellebrite Mobile Synchronization Ltd. to crack the iPhone used …
Context & Ripple Effects
This report lands at the center of the FBI's fight to open the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone without Apple's help. Bloomberg's sources name Israel's Cellebrite as the outside partner that cracked the device — though the sourcing quickly fractured, with the Washington Post reporting days later that the FBI did not use Cellebrite and instead paid hackers for an undisclosed software flaw.
The money trail became the story's second act: Reuters reported the FBI paid under $1 million for a technique reusable on any iPhone 5c running iOS 9, then that the total exceeded $1.3 million — the most the bureau has admitted paying for a hacking method. Five years on, the Washington Post attributed the actual break-in to Australian firm Azimuth exploiting a flaw in Mozilla's open-source code for lightning accessories.
First-order effects
- Cellebrite is thrust into the role of the FBI's go-to unlocking vendor, gaining a marquee government credential at the exact moment the bureau demonstrated it could open iPhones without Apple's cooperation.
- Within days of the crack, the FBI told local law enforcement it would help them unlock phones, turning a one-case capability into a service offered down the chain.
Second-order effects
- A paid gray market for phone-breaking expertise is now confirmed at scale — with the FBI's own admissions putting the cost above $1.3 million (the largest sum it has acknowledged for a hacking technique) — giving hackers and firms like Cellebrite and Azimuth a lucrative buyer with near-unlimited demand.
- Apple loses the leverage of being the sole gatekeeper: if a vendor can crack any iPhone 5c on iOS 9 for a flat fee, encryption disputes shift from courtroom standoffs to procurement.
Third-order effects
- The shifting attributions — Cellebrite, then unnamed hackers, then Azimuth — show how opaque the state's hacking supply chain is: taxpayers fund exploits whose true authors may never be publicly confirmed.
- If every locked device can be bought open rather than legally compelled, the structural pressure moves toward vendors building permanent commercial unlock businesses and manufacturers racing to close each purchased flaw.
The trend: Law enforcement is replacing legal compulsion of device makers with a commercial market of third-party phone-cracking vendors, one expensive exploit at a time.