Security

John McAfee Reveals, On TV, How He Can Hack An iPhone Or Any Computer In 30 Minutes

Adarsh Verma
March 2, 2016

Short Bytes: In an interview on National TV, John McAfee revealed how he can crack any iPhone or computer in just 30 minutes. He said that FBI knows how to do this and the law enforcement agency is deceiving the public by asking for a universal key to access more devices in future cases.

John McAfee — a cybersecurity pioneer, the maker of McAfee antivirus, a U.S. presidential candidate, and a lot more — has claimed that unlocking the iPhone involved in the San Bernardino shooting is a ‘trivial’ exercise and it should just take the FBI 30 minutes.

Speaking to Russia Today, the Libertarian Party’s Presidential candidate said that FBI is fooling people by forcing Apple to create a backdoor in iOS security in the name of unlocking the iPhone 5c used in the shooting. He says that FBI already knows how to unlock the iPhone and if it doesn’t, then the American population is in deep trouble.

In the video shared ahead, McAfee said that the law enforcement agency is deceiving the public by asking for a universal key to access more devices in future cases.

In the interview, he said that he is going to tell the world exactly how we do this. “Now I’ll probably lose my admission to the world hackers’ community, however, I’m gonna tell you,” he said. He went on to explain that a combination of a hardware and software engineer should do the trick. While the hardware engineer will take apart the iPhone and run a disassembler, the software engineer will scan the code to figure out the instructions used to unlock the keypad.

Here’s the procedure explained by him:

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You need a hardware engineer and a software engineer. The hardware engineer takes the phone apart and it [sic] copies the instruction set, which is the iOS and applications [sic] and your memory, and then you run a piece, a program called a disassembler which takes all the ones and zeroes and gives you readable instructions. Then, the coder sits down and he reads through, and what he’s looking for is the first access to the keypad, because that’s the first thing you’re doing when you input your pad. It’ll take half an hour. When you see that, then you read the instruction for where in memory this secret code is stored. It is that trivial. A half an hour.

McAfee tries to make a point by saying that ‘anybody can do it’ and the FBI should stop pretending as if the people are ‘idiots’. Previously, in an op-ed, McAfee wrote that he’s ready to offer his services to the FBI for free so that Apple wouldn’t have to put a backdoor.

Here’s the video interview, take a look:

Is iPhone’s security so fragile that it could be unlocked by anyone in 30 minutes? Share your views in the comments below.

Adarsh Verma

Fossbytes co-founder and an aspiring entrepreneur who keeps a close eye on open source, tech giants, and security. Get in touch with him by sending an email — [email protected]