A brand new iOS 18 safety characteristic makes it tougher for police to unlock iPhones

There may be an apparently new iOS 18 safety characteristic that reboots iPhones that haven’t been unlocked in a number of days, irritating police by making it tougher to interrupt into suspects’ iPhones, in accordance with 404 Media.

404 Media, which first reported police warnings in regards to the reboots on Thursday, writes that restarted iPhones enter a safer “Earlier than First Unlock,” or BFU state. Now, it appears Apple added “inactivity reboot” code in iOS 18.1 that triggers iPhones to restart after they’ve been locked for 4 days, Chris Wade, who based cellular evaluation firm Corellium, advised the outlet.

Each iOS and Android units enter this BFU state after they’re restarted, requiring you to enter your passcode (or PIN) to unlock your cellphone, limiting what kind of information forensics consultants can extract, in accordance with a weblog submit from Dakota State College’s digital forensics lab.

Apple didn’t instantly reply to The Verge’s request for remark. The corporate has steadily made iPhones tougher to compromise through the years, placing it at odds with legislation enforcement and elevating the specter of presidency rules requiring encryption backdoors. Apple has repeatedly resisted authorities’ requests to create backdoors, though that hasn’t stopped legislation enforcement from discovering its personal workarounds.