Over the last 5 years or so Apple has become one of the most aggressive companies to implement security in their mobile devices. Even macOS has come a long way from the laughable security it had during the famous I am a Mac and I am a PC campaign.
The Government has fought Apple again and again for their firm stance on security, something I have greatly appreciated despite my hate for the company as a business. It looks like Apple is losing the fight as Cellebrite has gone from being able to break into 3 to 5+ year-old phones to be able to break into the latest and current models.
Although this service is targeted towards law enforcement and government agencies, it isn't far-fetched to believe this will fall into the hands of more nefarious organizations. Many of the illegal hacking tools used by the NSA have been leaked to the general public.
Security is always in the hackers favor, they only need to succeed once to be successful whereas the victim has to be successful 100% of the time thousands of times a day. With the growth of crypto and digital identifies, this paints a very scary future for the digital world.
I am watching to see how Apple responds to this, but I don't have high hopes as the government is extremely powerful and influential and they will stop at nothing to gain and retain access to all personal devices.
Forbes has stated the Department for Homeland Security has already obtained data from an iPhone X to use in an arms-trafficking case back in November. The iPhone X was released November 3rd, around a month before Cellebrite claimed to access data from an iPhone X. The device was only in Cellebrite's possession for around two weeks.
As a citizen of United States, the future is very dark when it comes to security and privacy. It has been proven time and time again anything the government gains access to, equality malicious and less regulated organizations do as well.
There have been numerous cases reported at border airports of passengers being forced to unlock their phone and hand them over to security. It is highly likely they are copied and reviewed at a later date in more detail or assimulated into a central database.