Police have encountered a new problem in accessing iPhone data. What seemed like an iOS 18 bug is actually a security measure to protect users in case someone steals our iPhone and wants to access its data.
There have been many news reports in the last few hours about a supposed bug that caused iPhones that were in the hands of the police waiting to be hacked to recover their data to restart "randomly", making this task difficult. However, after analyzing the code of iOS 18.1, it turns out that it is not a bug, but a feature that Apple has implemented to increase the security of our phones.This new security measure consists of If after a while our phone has not been unlocked by the user, the terminal will automatically restart, which may seem strange, but has a very simple explanation: making things more difficult to access your data without the password.
Once we unlock our phone, the phone is in “After First Unlock” (AFU) mode, after the first unlock. The phone assumes that it is in the hands of its rightful owner and, let’s say, reduces the security to access the data. However, after a reboot, it is in “Before First Unlock” (BFU) mode, before the first unlock, which It leaves it practically protected against any unauthorized access. waiting for its owner to unlock it with their password. That is, if someone steals your phone and doesn't unlock it for a certain amount of time (not specified but could be 18 hours), the iPhone will automatically restart and go into BFU mode, making it virtually impossible to access its data even using the latest, most advanced hacking tools. This is a relief for users in case their phone is stolen, but the problem that law enforcement agencies face is that it also makes it difficult for them to access phones that could contain important data for investigating crimes.