Apple will contest a court order to
help FBI investigators access data on the phone belonging to San
Bernardino gunman Syed Rizwan Farook.
The company had been ordered to help the FBI circumvent security software
on Farook's iPhone, which the FBI said contained crucial information.
In a statement, Apple chief executive
Tim Cook said: "The United States government has demanded that Apple
take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our
customers."
"We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand."
Apple says it cannot unlock data on devices running iOS8 or newer
Since September 2014, data on the latest Apple devices - such as text messages and photographs - have been encrypted by default.
If
a device is locked, the user's passcode is required to access the data.
Entering an incorrect code 10 times will automatically erase the
phone's data, if this option has been enabled.
Apple says even its
own staff cannot access the data - a move the company made following
the Edward Snowden revelations into government surveillance.
The FBI has asked Apple to do two things.
Firstly,
it wants the company to alter Farook's iPhone so that investigators can
make unlimited attempts at the passcode without the risk of erasing the
data.
Secondly, it wants Apple to help implement a way to rapidly
try different passcode combinations, to save tapping in each one
manually.
The FBI wants to use what is known as a "brute force"
attack, trying out every combination until stumbling across the correct
one and unlocking the phone.
Farook is understood to have used a four-digit passcode which means there are 10,000 possible combinations.
Could Apple do what the FBI has asked? - Dr Steven Murdoch, cybersecurity expert
"It's difficult to say with any degree of certainty - Apple does not disclose enough about its operating system to know.
Other secure products such as smart cards are designed so that the security cannot be changed after they leave the factory.
Some devices such as bank computers wipe themselves if you try to change the software.
But phones are not designed primarily from a security perspective.
It's
possible that forcing a new version of iOS onto the phone would wipe
it. Apple may have designed it in this way - and it would certainly be
the more secure way to do it."
Apple said the FBI's demands set "a dangerous precedent".
"The
FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system,
circumventing several important security features, and install it on an
iPhone recovered during the investigation," wrote Mr Cook.
"The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers.
"Opposing this order is not something we take
lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an
overreach by the US government."
Farook and his wife killed 14 people in the California city last December before police fatally shot them.
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