iPhone Passcode Bypassed With NAND Mirroring Attack

From Ars Technica:

Sergei Skorobogatov has demonstrated that NAND mirroring—the technique dismissed by James Comey, the director of the FBI, as unworkable—is actually a viable means of bypassing passcode entry limits on an Apple iPhone 5C. What’s more, the technique, which involves soldering off the phone’s flash memory chip, can be used on any model of iPhone up to the iPhone 6 Plus, which use the same type of LGA60 NAND chip. Later models, however, will require “more sophisticated equipment and FPGA test boards.”

Later models starting with the iPhones 6s and 7 apparently cannot be hacked using this technique.

I wonder if this is the kind of attack that was used by whomever the FBI hired in March to break into the iPhone seized in the San Bernardino shooting case.

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